Author: Ohart

Paul McCartney has written a children’s book called Hey Grandude!, a name the 76-year-old former member of The Beatles says came from one of his grandchildren.

“I’ve got eight grandchildren and they’re all beautiful and one day one of them said to me ‘Hey Grandude!’ I said ‘What?’ and I thought, I kind of like that,” McCartney said in a video he posted Thursday on Twitter.

“From then on, I was kind of known as Grandude.”

The picture book tells the story of a grandfather with four grandchildren and is illustrated by Toronto-based artist Kathryn Durst.

“He calls them ‘Chillers.’ They love him and they go on adventures with him and he’s kind of magical,” McCartney said.

McCartney is currently on his “Freshen Up” world tour featuring songs from his latest album, “Egypt Station.”

The book will be published by Penguin Random House UK and is available for pre-order before it goes on sale in Sept. 2019.
…

When Barbra Streisand started writing lyrics for her new political song, “Don’t Lie to Me,” she initially aimed for “very subtle” references to President Donald Trump. But she couldn’t help herself.

“I just went ballistic,” she said.

“Don’t Lie to Me,” released Thursday, finds a passionate Streisand questioning the nation’s leader and pleading for change. Lyrics include, “How do you sleep when the world keeps turning?/All that we built has come undone/How do you sleep when the world is burning?/Everyone answers to someone.”

“I just can’t stand what’s going on,” the Oscar, Grammy and Emmy winner said in a phone interview Wednesday night with The Associated Press. “His assault on our democracy, our institutions, our founders — I think we’re in a fight. … We’re in a war for the soul of America.”

“Don’t Lie to Me” appears on her new album, “Walls,” her first project of mainly original tracks since 2005. It will be released Nov. 2.

Streisand, a proud and outspoken Democrat who has campaigned for politicians over the years, said she felt moved to write original music because of what’s happening in the world. Of “The Rain Will Fall” — another new song she co-wrote — she says, “You can spell rain several ways.”

“But it’s my prophecy,” she said, laughing. “I hope it comes true.”

“Don’t Lie to Me” came to life during a road trip. Streisand said listening to the news in the car “was making me sick, listening to lies, listening to things that are such craziness.” So she turned on music and felt motivated to write a new song.

“I wanted to talk about the things that were making me feel so sad, heartbroken,” she said. “I’m a kind of fierce American. I don’t know who we are anymore as a country. Are we embracing people who flee oppression? Or are we separating children from parents, putting them in cages? I don’t know if people care about the planet, the survival of the planet. Do they care about clean air? Clean water? Clean food? If they do, how could they vote for somebody like Trump, who believes it’s a hoax?”

Streisand adds, “I’m frightened for this country. And yet, I have hope.”

On her 11-track “Walls” album, she also reworked classics like “Imagine,” “What a Wonderful World” and “What the World Needs Now.”

Streisand, 76, said she “kind of dedicates this album to the young people who are speaking out.”

“It’s important that people vote. It’s important that people believe in the power of their own voice and how much that changes things. It’s like the kids speaking out, the Parkland kids,” she said.

“It’s easy to feel powerless now but we’re not if each of us speak up and get out and vote,” she added.
…

Fashion designer Ellen London uses textiles from all over the world in her designs, sometimes mixing them — combining a Thai fabric, for example — with one from the U.S. Appalachian region.

“I believe that textiles and fashion have an idea to teach people about understanding and connection of different cultures through fabric,” London told VOA during a recent showing during (Washington) DC Fashion Week.

As a former Peace Corps volunteer, London discovered what she calls her “gypsy” spirit. It has taken her all over the world in search of native textiles that she converts into “wearable” art with the help of her Thai design partner and a group of female tailors.

According to her website, her collection includes “East and West African wax and printed fabrics, washed silks and cotton wovens from Thailand, and designer-created Japanese Shibori and Nigerian Adire batik techniques on some of our new designs. Indigo and batik have found their place on virtually every continent.”

Color and texture aside, London said her work is about “respect and including people, rather than excluding them.”

London is a natural for DC Fashion Week because she fits the vision of event founder Ean Williams, who sees Washington, D.C., “as the center of international fashion.”

DC? Fashion?

Ride the subway in Washington, and it will quickly become apparent that the nation’s capital is not a couture town. Residents dress conservatively, if not in clothes that are often stodgy.

To Williams, this is a waste of considerable opportunity.

“D.C., of course, is known for politics,” he mused. “But there are so many things to do in Washington, from opera to museums to concerts to theater to great poolside parties to mainstream society events to after-parties. There are so many great opportunities for people to dress to impress.”

Williams combines politics with Hollywood glamour to label his vision of Washington “Pollywood.”

For the past 14 years, he has staged fashion week twice a year. DC Fashion Week started with local designers showcasing their collections and has evolved into an international event, attracting designers from all over the world.

The DC Fashion Week organization is a nonprofit, so most of the costs are donated by vendors and sponsors. As a result, designers can show their collections at minimal cost, making the event affordable to young designers and international ones.

“Trying to participate in other shows can become very expensive for a designer. So, participating in DC is just a great opportunity,” said swimsuit designer Camile Case, who is from Jamaica.

As always, the 29th fashion week took place in a variety of venues — this fall at Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum and the French embassy. Each sold-out event featured a different category of designer, including emerging talent and international couturiers.

“The hope and goal of fashion week … is that every country send their best designer and talent to showcase, like the Olympics,” said Williams, who is a self-taught designer himself. “We want to show what the fashion community of the world has to offer to the consumer.”

Models & guests

DC Fashion Week, unlike fashion weeks in other cities, provides an opportunity for models with many backgrounds and different shapes.

From Nigeria, Bukola Aeosun was participating in her second fashion week. “I like the diversity in races and colors and textures and sizes. I think that is very empowering and it’s exciting.”

“Fashion is for everyone,” Williams said. “We started with inclusivity. We started with having diverse models, models of different sizes, models of different ages.”

The audience is diverse, too. From Pakistan, Maliha Cheema attended fashion week for the first time.

“I really enjoyed the show,” she said. “I love how inclusive it was. There are models of every size, and there is a hijabi and everything.”
…

Washington, D.C., is not a fashion town. Residents are known for dressing conservatively, if not for wearing clothes that are downright stodgy. But a computer engineer-turned fashion designer believes the nation’s capital is one of the best locations for fashion. VOA’s June Soh met DC Fashion Week founder Ean Williams to learn what the event is all about. Her report is narrated by Faith Lapidus.
…

An Bui and his siblings emigrated to the United States from Vietnam in the late 1980s. Several years later, his parents followed them to Richmond, Virginia. VOA’s Hung Lai visited the family’s restaurant, which helped make their adopted city one of the nation’s ultimate destinations for beer lovers.
…

Earlier this year, two artists in Leesburg, Virginia, founded an art space where they could work and teach other art lovers as well. Part retail business, part studio, Clay and Metal Loft helps aspiring local artists gain the skills and confidence needed to start their own business. But, as Faiza Elmasry tells us, the founders have a bigger dream, they want their space to energize the community. Faith Lapidus narrates.
…

The National Gallery of Indonesia is usually associated with such artists as Raden Saleh, Affandi and other icons of the nation’s artistic history. This month it plays host to the works of asylum seekers and refugees in an exhibition entitled Berdiam/Bertandang, which means Stay/Visit.

With about 13,800 people identified as “persons of concern” by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) residing in Indonesia, the exhibit aims to raise awareness of their plight while they wait in an uncertain and increasingly prolonged “transit.”

The exhibition is partly the culmination of a program called Art for Refuge, established by 16-year-old Indonesian high school student Katrina Wardhana, to teach art to children and young people at the Jakarta-based Roshan Learning Center for refugees. 

“I felt art was like a really powerful tool where refugees in Indonesia can share their stories,” she told VOA.

Many from Afghanistan

About half of the refugees in Indonesia are from Afghanistan. Mumtaz Khan Chopan, a professional artist who arrived in Indonesia in 2013 and whose paintings were part of Berdiam/Bertandang, said being an artist in Afghanistan holds extreme risks. There are few art institutions, he said, restricting opportunities to “go and practice and talk to likeminded people, artists.” 

“Most of the people in Afghanistan believe that art is not a valuable thing,” he added. “Not only valuable, it’s not even allowed … but this does not mean that Afghanistan doesn’t have art.”

Binam, a 17-year-old from Afghanistan whose name has been changed to protect his identity, came to Indonesia three years ago as an unaccompanied minor and lives in a shelter provided by the UNHCR. He learned photography as part of Art for Refuge and his work appeared in Berdiam/Bertandang. 

“It’s my first work, exhibition and it’s a big exhibition,” he said. “I feel proud.”

​Stuck in Indonesia

Indonesia has historically been a transit country for refugees seeking asylum in third countries, particularly Australia. While Indonesia is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, it also does not deport asylum seekers and refugees back to potential danger. Jakarta’s historical approach to refugees has been described by anthropologist Antje Missbach as a form of “benign neglect.”

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo in January 2017 signed a presidential decree that for the first time acknowledged the presence of a refugee community in Indonesia as distinct from “illegal immigrants” and gave directives to various government institutions regarding their respective responsibilities in managing humanitarian aid. They continue to be denied the right to work, however, and opportunities for formal education are limited.

Moreover, resettlement in third countries such as Australia, the United States and Canada are increasingly unavailable to refugees residing in Indonesia. As of late 2017, the UNHCR reportedly began telling the refugee community there that resettlement elsewhere was highly unlikely for at least 10 to 15 years, if ever. 

“We have to live in shelter[s] because in here we can’t work,” Binam said. “And now there is no resettlement for the refugee from other countries.”

According to UNHCR data, 269 out of almost 4,000 refugee children in Indonesia are enrolled in accredited national schools. The work of the Roshan Learning Center and other community-led education initiatives are therefore vital. Mitra Salima Suryono, a spokesperson for UNHCR Jakarta, told VOA that “by doing such activities, it’s good because it keeps their hopes alive. What’s more important is that friendship between Indonesians and the refugees are getting tighter with initiatives like this.”

Building relationships

The main goal of Art for Refuge is boosting understanding about refugees in the broader community, said Wardhana, its founder.

“Having just found out about refugees only quite recently after my involvement at Roshan, I realized how unaware and un-talked-about the issue is here in Indonesia,” she said.

Chris Bunjuman, a photographer who taught teenagers through the program, encouraged his students to attend a public festival in Jakarta and take photos of 40 people with mustaches as an assignment. 

“Most of the time they always stay in the same community … they don’t really interact with people around them because of the language barrier,” he said. “Those assignments really pushed them, with their thinking … eventually they got out of their comfort zone.”

Alia Swastika, the curator of Berdiam/Bertandang, said that “the problem in Indonesia is that when we discuss about refugees they always think, ‘Oh, we have many other different problems that need to be solved and these are more related to Indonesian people themselves.’”

“People in Indonesia they are educated, of course they are very nice, but there is one thing they don’t know much about refugee[s] … what they are doing here,” said Chopan, the Afghan artist, who says he has found empowerment through the creative scene in Indonesia. “If I introduce myself to a person that I am a refugee, I get different reaction to if I say I am an artist.”
…

After a months-long ban because of its lesbian love theme, the Kenyan film “Rafiki,” which means “friend” in Swahili, premiered for the first time in Nairobi following a Kenyan high court decision to allow the screening of the controversial film. VOA correspondent Mariama Diallo reports.
…

 The University of Minnesota will award the late rock star Prince an honorary degree to recognize his influence on music and his role in shaping his hometown of Minneapolis.

 

University President Eric Kaler and Regent Darrin Rosha will present the school’s highest honor, the Doctorate of Humane Letters, to Prince’s sister, Tyka Nelson, in a ceremony on campus Wednesday evening. The university had been preparing to present it to Prince himself before he died of an accidental painkiller overdose in 2016.

 

Students from the university’s School of Music will be joined by guest artists Kirk Johnson, Jellybean Johnson, St. Paul Peterson, Cameron Kinghorn and a surprise guest in paying tribute to Prince by performing music associated with his career.

 

While the event is free, it’s already booked to capacity.
…

Like a scene out of a high-octane action movie that he would star in, Will Smith celebrated his 50th birthday Tuesday by successfully bungee jumping from a helicopter near the Grand Canyon.

 

Cameras, which captured the stunt for a livestream on YouTube, showed the actor hooked to a harness and bungee cords dangling over a gorge in northeastern Arizona.

 

“This is some of the most beautiful stuff I’ve ever seen in my life,” Smith said while still swinging over the chasm.

 

He described the experience as going “from pure terror to absolute bliss.”

 

The entire event had the feel of a polished episode of reality TV. Camera crews showed Smith, wife Jada Pinkett Smith and his three children being greeted by dozens of relatives and friends on a platform. His “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” co-star, Alfonso Ribeiro, served as a host interviewing Smith and others before and after.

 

The stunt was billed as a leap “in the heart of the Grand Canyon.” But the jump was outside Grand Canyon National Park on the Navajo Nation. The tribe’s reservation borders the east rim of the national park.

 

A Navajo medicine man gave Smith a blessing and thanked him for coming to the reservation.

 

Smith said the bungee jump was a challenge from Yes Theory, a YouTube channel that makes videos of people doing activities outside of their comfort zone. But the event also raised money for charity through an online lottery for a chance to watch the jump in person. The proceeds will benefit access to education for children in struggling countries.

 

 
…

Bill Cosby spent his first night in prison alone, in a single cell near the infirmary, as he began his three-to-10-year sentence for sexual assault.

Corrections officials announced Wednesday that Cosby – now known as Inmate No. NN7687 – will serve his sentence at SCI Phoenix, a new state prison about 20 miles from the gated estate where a jury concluded he drugged and molested a woman in 2004. The $400 million lockup opened two months ago and can hold 3,830 inmates.

Cosby will meet with prison medical staff, psychologists and others as the staff assesses his needs. Under prison policy, the 81-year-old comedian will be allowed phone calls and visits and will get a chance to exercise.

The prison’s long-term goal is to place Cosby in the general population, officials said.

“We are taking all of the necessary precautions to ensure Mr. Cosby’s safety and general welfare in our institution,” Corrections Secretary John Wetzel said in a statement.

As Cosby began adjusting to life behind bars, his family and publicists vowed he’ll appeal his conviction on three felony sexual assault counts after the first celebrity trial of the (hash)MeToo era.

Calling Cosby “one of the greatest civil rights leaders in the United States for over the past 50 years,” spokesman Andrew Wyatt on Tuesday decried the trial as the “most sexist and racist” in the country’s history.

The judge, prosecutor and jury saw it differently.

“No one is above the law. And no one should be treated disproportionately because of who they are, where they live, or even their wealth, celebrity or philanthropy,” Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill said in sentencing Cosby to an above-average sentence.

Cosby’s defense team has raised the racial issue before, in 2016, before quickly scrapping it.

“We prosecute where the evidence takes us and that was done in this case,” District Attorney Kevin Steele said Tuesday.

After his first trial ended in a hung jury, Cosby was convicted in April of drugging and sexually assaulting Temple University women’s basketball administrator Andrea Constand. He has faced a barrage of similar accusations from more than 60 women over the past five decades, but Constand’s case is the only one that went to trial.

In a statement submitted to the court, Constand, 45, said the assault and Cosby’s subsequent attacks on her character had crushed her spirit, adding: “We may never know the full extent of his double life as a sexual predator, but his decades-long reign of terror as a serial rapist is over.”

Prosecutor Kristen Feden said Constand told her she was happy with the sentence.

“I always look for my strength in the victims, and Andrea Constand was amazing,” Feden said on NBC’s “Today” show Wednesday. “Her courage and her strength was enough for me to say, ‘Let’s keep going.'”

Women’s advocates hailed Cosby’s sentence as a landmark (hash)MeToo moment.

“Bill Cosby seeing the inside of a prison cell sends a strong message that predators – no matter who they are, from Hollywood to Wall Street to the Supreme Court – can no longer be protected at the expense of victims,” said Sonia Ossorio, president of the National Organization for Women of New York.

Cosby’s lawyers asked that he be allowed to remain free on bail while he appeals his conviction, but the judge ordered him locked up immediately, saying that “he could quite possibly be a danger to the community.”

Cosby – who is legally blind and uses a cane – removed his watch, tie and jacket and walked out in a white dress shirt and red suspenders, his hands cuffed in front of him.

Cosby must serve the minimum of three years before becoming eligible for parole.

Cosby’s punishment, which also included a $25,000 fine, came at the end of a two-day hearing at which the judge declared him a “sexually violent predator” – a designation that subjects him to monthly counseling for the rest of his life and requires that neighbors and schools be notified of his whereabouts. A psychologist for the state testified that Cosby appears to have a mental disorder characterized by an uncontrollable urge to have sex with women without their consent.

Constand testified that Cosby gave her what she thought were herbal pills to ease stress, then penetrated her with his fingers as she lay immobilized on a couch. Cosby claimed the encounter was consensual, and his lawyers branded her a “con artist” who framed the comedian to get a big payday – a $3.4 million settlement she received over a decade ago.

The AP does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they come forward publicly, which Constand and other accusers have done.

Five other accusers took the stand at the trial as part of an effort by prosecutors to portray Cosby – once known as America’s Dad for his role on the top-rated “Cosby Show” in the 1980s – as a serial predator.

Constand went to police a year after waking up in a fog at Cosby’s estate, her clothes askew, only to have the district attorney pass on the case. Another DA reopened the file a decade later and charged the TV star after stand-up comic Hannibal Buress’ riff about Cosby’s being a rapist prompted other women to come forward, and after a federal judge, acting on a request from The Associated Press, unsealed some of Cosby’s startling, decade-old testimony in Constand’s related civil suit.

In his testimony, Cosby described sexual encounters with a string of actresses, models and other young women and talked about obtaining quaaludes to give to those he wanted to sleep with.
…

When Irishman Michael Kelly was a boy, he loved nothing more than gazing at planes taking off and landing at his nearest airport.

Now 67, after more than half a century building what he believes is the world’s largest private collection of model aircraft, he has donated the lot to Shannon Airport, where his lifelong passion for aviation began.

“I always used to love the noise of the aircraft going over my house in Limerick city and I was very curious,” Kelly said after cutting the ribbon on the airport’s new aviation gallery which now houses his collection in rows of display cases.

“When I made my first holy communion I asked my mum and dad to take me to Shannon airport. So I got to see the beautiful aircraft and from that day on I was hooked.”

While he would have loved the opportunity to have become a pilot, sourcing rare model aircraft still took the Limerick man around the world. None of his 2,300 planes were produced in Ireland.

A friend said Kelly has spent 10,000 euros ($12,000) a year amassing the record haul.

The collector’s favorite? A Boeing KC Tanker, one of only 10 made around the world.

Living alone in his renovated farmhouse, Kelly said there were exhibitors on the other side of the world “that would do anything” to have the collection. Instead, he donated it closer to home.

“I think it’s testament to the work he’s done over the last 60 years and we are delighted that he has entrusted us to look after it for the next 100-years plus,” said Niall Maloney, operations director at Shannon Airport.

($1 = 0.8499 euros)
…

The important thing to rock climber Alex Honnold is that the movie screen be big. IMAX, whatever. But big.

It’s shortly before the Toronto International Film Festival premiere of Free Solo, the documentary that chronicles Honnold’s legendary, ropeless ascent up Yosemite’s El Capitan, a 3,000-foot wall of sheer granite and possibly the world’s most fabled rock face. Honnold has just come from free soloing — climbing without safety gear — a 69-story luxury apartment building in Jersey City, New Jersey.

From a hotel window he scans the Toronto skyline but doesn’t see anything much appealing. “It has to be inspiring aesthetically,” he says.

Honnold, 33, is widely acknowledged as the greatest free-solo climber in the world. And in a sport that demands absolute perfection from its strivers — death is the only alternative — Honnold’s feat on El Cap is his masterpiece. An almost unfathomable climbing achievement, the four-hour climb is still spoken of in hushed reverence. The New York Times called it “one of the greatest athletic feats of any kind, ever.”

But whether scaling El Cap was Honnold’s greatest challenge is an open question. Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s Free Solo, in theaters Friday, not only chronicles Honnold’s famed ascent, and the months of preparation and anguish leading up to it, but also an arguably steeper challenge for the 33-year-old Honnold: moving out of his van and maintaining a long-term relationship.

“Anybody, if you took two years of their life, you would see some growth, hopefully,” Honnold says. “But it’s easy to see growth when you’re starting at zero.”

After settling whether Free Solo would screen on IMAX (it wouldn’t), Honnold was joined by Sanni McCandless, his girlfriend of several years. Just as Chin and Vasarhelyi, the filmmaking couple of the celebrated Meru, were beginning their film three years ago, McCandless slipped Honnold her number at a book signing. The exceptionally dedicated but goofy and boyish Honnold (in the film, he sums up the fearsome specter of El Cap with the phase “I mean, dude”) is at first almost comically inept at making room for someone else in his life.

“When we started he was online dating, or on-phone dating, on his book tour. And then he met her. We were not expecting that,” says Vasarhelyi.

‘Extremely painful’

The two make an appealing and revealing match. McCandless, articulate and assertive, pushes back against the less mature, bluntly honest Honnold, long a bachelor adventurer. Vasarhelyi shakes her head. “It’s painful at times,” she says, smiling. “Extremely painful.”

Case in point: When Honnold, shortly after meeting Sanni, is shown saying that she will come and go like previous girlfriends. Later, they buy a place in Las Vegas and are seen refrigerator shopping.

“How do you feel about that line, Sanni?” Honnold asks.

“How do YOU feel about that line?” she retorts. 

“That’s just one of many lines in the film I’m slightly horrified to hear back,” says Honnold. “That’s kind of the nature of two years of filming. They just have so much material of me saying terrible things.”

What makes Free Solo so fascinating is how these developments influence Honnold just as he preparing to take his biggest risk as a climber. Just the slightest distractions can be potentially lethal for a free soloist, making both the onset of love and the presence of film cameras unpredictable factors in a zero-sum game.

“Soloing always come from some kind of particular mental space. And it has taken some effort to cultivate the right space for a relationship, the right space to still climb at a high level and just try to balance it,” says Honnold.

‘Glorious’ climb

The high stakes also transferred to the film crew. Chin, himself an expert climber, estimates that he and the team of veteran climbers spent more than 30 days rigging and shooting on El Cap. The danger is very real. Many renowned solo climbers have died; just in June, two experienced climbers, Jason Wells and Tim Klein, fell to their death while “simul-climbing” El Cap with ropes.

“You’re a pro, but when you have that much exposure and you’re moving that much equipment and you’re filming on top of it and thinking about your friend, it’s a tremendous amount of physical and mental exertion,” says Chin. “The crew was tortured by the idea that maybe you’ll be filming your friend’s death.”

Vasarhelyi says the tension was highest when Honnold made his first, aborted soloing attempt of El Cap despite a recent injury. She felt he wasn’t prepared.

“But I don’t think our role as filmmakers was to tell him not do it,” she says. “And that’s weird, right? Especially when there’s a life on the line.”

McCandless has also had to come to terms with Honnold’s obsessive pursuits.  

“I don’t think I ever wished that he wouldn’t do it. I wanted him to not want it, but I never wanted him to not to do it,” she says. “Knowing that he does want it, you realize he’s going to be so bummed if he never brings it to fruition.”

Free Solo in some ways demystifies soloing which, to some, can sound like lunacy. Honnold’s preparation is extreme. He doesn’t go until he’s thoroughly mapped out every foot hold of a climb. Also worth noting: A brain scan revealed that Honnold barely registers fear.

“It’s a crazy-seeming thing. I get that,” he says. “I just think: Why does anybody seek out anything challenging? Humans do so many interesting and difficult things.”

Honnold calls his El Cap solo the best climbing experience of his life. “Glorious,” he says. For all their months of anxiety, witnessing the climb left the filmmakers mesmerized.

 “I remember standing in the meadow being totally terrified, trying to get myself under control,” says Vasarhelyi. “Then there was a certain moment where I was like: This is absolutely beautiful. It’s exquisite.”
…

His Hollywood career and good-guy image in ruins, an 81-year-old Bill Cosby was sentenced Tuesday to three to 10 years behind bars for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman, becoming the first celebrity of the #MeToo era to be sent to prison.

 

The punishment all but completed the dizzying, late-in-life fall from grace for the comedian, former TV star and breaker of racial barriers.

 

“It is time for justice. Mr. Cosby, this has all circled back to you. The time has come,” Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill said. He quoted from victim Andrea Constand’s own statement to the court, in which she said Cosby took her “beautiful, young spirit and crushed it.”

 

Cosby declined the opportunity to speak before the sentence came down, and afterward he sat smiling, laughing and chatting with defense team. His wife of 54 years, Camille, was not in court. Constand smiled broadly upon hearing the punishment and was hugged by others in the courtroom.

 

Cosby’s lawyers asked that he be allowed to remain free on bail while he appeals his conviction, but the judge appeared incredulous over the request and turned it down, saying that even considering Cosby’s age and blindness, “he could quite possibly be a danger to the community.”

 

Cosby was also fined $25,000.

 

Former model Janice Dickinson, who was among the 60 or so women who have come forward to accuse Cosby of drugging and violating them over the past five decades, looked at Cosby and said: “Here’s the last laugh pal.”

 

The punishment came at the end of a two-day hearing at which the judge declared Cosby a  “sexually violent predator” — a modern-day scarlet letter that subjects him to monthly counseling for the rest of his life and requires that neighbors and schools be notified of his whereabouts.

 

The comic once known as America’s Dad for his role on the top-rated “Cosby Show” in the 1980s was convicted in April of violating Constand, Temple University women’s basketball administrator, at his suburban Philadelphia estate in 2004. It was the first celebrity trial of the #MeToo era.

 

Cosby faced a sentence of anywhere from probation to 10 years in prison. His lawyers asked for house arrest, saying Cosby — who is legally blind — is too old and vulnerable to do time in prison. Prosecutors asked for five to 10 years behind bars, saying he could still pose a threat to women.

 

Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele rejected the notion that Cosby’s age and infirmity entitle him to mercy. “He was good at hiding this for a long time. Good at suppressing this for a long time. So it’s taken a long time to get there,” Steele said.

 

The sentencing came as another extraordinary #MeToo drama unfolded on Capitol Hill, where Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh stands accused of sexual misconduct more than three decades ago.

 

The Cosby case “really raised awareness of the pervasiveness of … sexual misconduct against subordinates and against women of relatively less power,” said Daniel Filler, dean of Drexel University’s law school. “For jurors, I think it’s inherently changed the credibility of the accusers.”

 

The judge ruled on Cosby’s “sexually violent predator” status after a psychologist for the state testified that the entertainer appears to have a mental disorder that gives him an uncontrollable urge to have sex with women without their consent. When the ruling came down, a woman in the courtroom shot her fist into the air and whispered, “Yessss!”

 

In a statement submitted to the court and released Tuesday, Constand, 45, said that she has had to cope with years of anxiety and self-doubt. She said she now lives alone with her two dogs and has trouble trusting people.

 

“When the sexual assault happened, I was a young woman brimming with confidence and looking forward to a future bright with possibilities,” she wrote in her five-page statement. “Now, almost 15 years later, I’m a middle-aged woman who’s been stuck in a holding pattern for most of her adult life, unable to heal fully or to move forward.”

 

She also wrote of Cosby: “We may never know the full extent of his double life as a sexual predator, but his decades-long reign of terror as a serial rapist is over.”

 

The AP does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they come forward publicly, which Constand and other accusers have done.

 

Constand went to police a year after waking up in a fog at Cosby’s gated estate, her clothes askew, only to have the district attorney pass on the case.

 

Another district attorney reopened the file a decade later and charged the TV star after stand-up comic Hannibal Buress’ riff about Cosby being a rapist prompted more accusers to come forward and after a federal judge, acting on a request from The Associated Press, unsealed some of Cosby’s startling, decade-old testimony in Constand’s related civil suit.

 

In his testimony, Cosby described sexual encounters with a string of actresses, models and other young women and talked about obtaining quaaludes to give to those he wanted to sleep with.

 

Cosby’s first trial in 2017 ended with a hung jury. He was convicted at a retrial that opened months after the #MeToo movement had taken down such figures as Hollywood studio boss Harvey Weinstein, NBC’s Matt Lauer, actor Kevin Spacey and Sen. Al Franken.

 

Constand said Cosby gave her what she thought were herbal pills to ease stress, then penetrated her with his fingers as she lay immobilized on a couch. Cosby claimed the encounter was consensual, and his lawyers branded her a “con artist” who framed the comedian to get a big payday — a $3.4 million settlement she received over a decade ago.

 

Five other accusers took the stand at the trial as part of an effort by prosecutors to portray him as a predator.

 

Cosby, whose estimated fortune once topped $400 million, broke barriers in the 1960s as the first black actor to star in a network show, “I Spy.” He went on to superstardom as wise and understanding Dr. Cliff Huxtable on “The Cosby Show,” a sitcom that showed America a new kind of black TV family: a warm and loving household led by two professionals, one a lawyer, the other a doctor.

 

He also found success with his Saturday morning cartoon “Fat Albert,” appeared in commercials for Jello-O pudding and became a public moralist, lecturing the black community about young people stealing things and wearing baggy pants. He won a Presidential Medal of Freedom and countless Emmys, Golden Globes and Grammy awards.

 

As the allegations mounted, his career all but collapsed, “Cosby Show” reruns were taken off the air, and one college after another stripped him of his honorary degrees.
…

Michael Kors is buying the Italian fashion house Gianni Versace in a deal worth more than $2 billion (1.83 billion euros), continuing its hard charge into the world of high-end fashion.

 

The deal announced Tuesday follows the New York handbag maker’s $1.35 billion acquisition last year of the shoemaker Jimmy Choo.

 

Michael Kors Holdings Ltd., like others in the fashion industry, is trying to fire up sales by tacking on big name brands like the globally revered Versace

 

Tapestry, once known as Coach, owns Stuart Weitzman and last year it acquired Kate Spade.

 

By all accounts, Kors has successfully melded Jimmy Choo into its portfolio, putting up big sales in the most recent quarter.
…

Egypt says archaeologists have discovered a “massive” ancient building in the town of Mit Rahina, 20 kilometers, or 12 miles, south of Cairo.

The Antiquities Ministry says Tuesday archaeologists also uncovered an attached building that includes a large Roman bath and a chamber likely for religious rituals.

Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, says the building is likely part of the residential block of the area, which was the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis.

Memphis, founded around 3,100 B.C., was home to Menes, the king who united Upper and Lower Egypt.

Egypt hopes such discoveries will spur tourism, partially driven by antiquities sightseeing, which was hit hard by political turmoil following the 2011 uprising.

 
…

Bill Cosby faces a good chance of being sent to prison Tuesday, when a judge is expected to sentence the TV star who was convicted of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in 2004.

 

Cosby, 81, will have the opportunity to speak in court before he is sentenced.

 

The once-beloved actor and comedian, dubbed “America’s Dad” for his role as Dr. Cliff Huxtable on the top-ranked, 1980s-era “Cosby Show,” faces anything from probation to 10 years in prison for drugging and molesting Andrea Constand, a Temple University basketball administrator, at his estate near Philadelphia. She went to police a year later, only to have a prosecutor turn down the case.

In the years since Constand first went to police in 2005, more than 60 women have accused Cosby of sexual misconduct, though none of those claims have led to criminal charges.

 

Cosby is the first celebrity of the (hash)MeToo era to go on trial, and the first to be convicted.

 

It’s a reckoning that accusers and prosecutors say has been decades in the making.

 

“The victims cannot be un-raped. Unfortunately, all we can do is hold the perpetrator accountable,” said Gianna Constand, the trial victim’s mother, who testified Monday that her daughter’s buoyant personality was forever changed after the attack.

 

The hearing is set to conclude Tuesday after testimony from a defense psychologist who believes Cosby is no longer a danger, given his age, and should not be branded a “sexually violent predator.”

 

Defense lawyer Joseph Green Jr. urged the judge ignore the protests and activism surrounding the case, and send Cosby home on house arrest.

 

“The suggestion that Mr. Cosby is dangerous is not supported by anything other than the frenzy,” Green said, as demonstrators gathered outside the suburban Philadelphia courthouse.

 

Being labeled a sexually violent predator would make him subject to mandatory lifetime counseling and community notification of his whereabouts.

 

On Monday, Kristen Dudley, a psychologist for the state of Pennsylvania, testified that Cosby fits the criteria for a sexually violent predator, showing signs of a mental disorder that involves an uncontrollable urge to have nonconsensual sex with young women.

 

Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele said Cosby would no doubt commit similar crimes if given the chance, warning that the former TV star seemingly gets a sexual thrill out of slipping women drugs and assaulting them.

 

“To say that he’s too old to do that — to say that he should get a pass, because it’s taken this long to catch up to what he’s done?” Steele said, his voice rising. “What they’re asking for is a `get out of jail free’ card.”

 

Cosby, he said, has shown repeatedly that he feels no remorse over his actions. And he said the sentence should send a message to others.

 

“Despite bullying tactics, despite PR teams and other folks trying to change the optics, as one lawyer for the defense put it, the bottom line is that nobody’s above the law. Nobody,” the district attorney said.

 

He urged a five- to 10-year prison sentence .

 

After testifying for several hours at two trials, the first of which ended in a hung jury, Constand spoke in court Monday for just two minutes.

 

“The jury heard me. Mr. Cosby heard me. Now all I am asking for is justice as the court sees fit,” said Andrea Constand, who submitted a much longer victim-impact statement that wasn’t read in court.

 

The AP does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they come forward publicly, which Constand and other accusers have done.

 

Cosby’s side didn’t call any character witnesses, and his wife of 54 years, Camille, was not in court.

 

Cosby became the first black actor to star in a prime-time TV show, “I Spy,” in 1965. He remained a Hollywood A-lister for much of the next half-century.

 

Monday’s proceedings took place as another extraordinary (hash)MeToo drama continued to unfold on Capitol Hill, where Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh faces allegations of sexual misconduct from more than three decades ago.

 

 

 
…

Tiger Woods’ victory at the Tour Championship on Sunday has given the entire American Ryder Cup team a “nice buzz”, captain Jim Furyk said on Monday.

Furyk and his European counterpart Thomas Bjorn heaped praise on each other’s teams at a news conference at Le Golf National, where Woods was the center of attention even though he was not present.

The 14-times major champion ended a five-year drought with an emotional victory at East Lake in Atlanta on Sunday.

“It’s obviously a nice buzz for our team,” Furyk said.

“Not that this event needs much more energy brought to it. It’s probably the biggest, grandest event in all golf but it’ll add that much more excitement I believe.

“You could see the emotion in (Woods) fighting back tears. It was important to him to win.”

Furyk said that Woods, who will be playing in his eighth Ryder Cup, had grown into his role as an elder statesman of the American team.

“What’s important to him right now is to be a part of that team, part of that group.

“He won yesterday as an individual and I know how much that means to him but he’s flipped that page pretty quickly and is really excited to join his team mates and move forward in that process.”

Bjorn also spoke warmly of Woods, and what he brings to the sport.

“Him winning golf tournaments again is brilliant because, in the end, whatever it is these 24 guys are going to do this week, the game of golf needs that boost of somebody like him that transcends the game to the masses,” Bjorn said. “So for everyone in golf it’s brilliant.”

As for each other’s teams, both captains were effusive ahead of the Friday start.

“Thomas mentioned this is probably the strongest American team we’ve ever had and maybe it’s the strongest team Europe has ever fielded top to bottom,” Furyk said.

Furyk’s players are well aware that the Americans have not won a Ryder Cup on European soil since 1993.

“We’re reminded of it quite often. Is it extra motivation? I’m not sure you need extra motivation in a Ryder Cup,” he said.

“There are some veteran players who have never won on foreign soil. That’s something that’s missing in their careers, so they’re anxious to get started. They are well aware of how difficult it is to win in Europe.”

The American team arrived in Paris early afternoon after an overnight flight from Atlanta, where all but Jordan Spieth played in the Tour Championship won by Tiger Woods on Sunday.

“We were on the ground by 12.45 and a nice police escort to the hotel, so guys are there, settled, trying to get ready for the week,” Furyk said.

Six of the European team also played in Atlanta, but captain Bjorn is not worried about fatigue.

“One thing I learnt about Ryder Cup is no matter how tired you are, you’re going to carry yourself, the last bit of adrenaline you have in your body,” the Dane said.

“Achieving big things obviously takes a bit out of you but they will carry themselves through this week because they’re top athletes and this is what they’ve been looking forward to probably the most all season.”
…

Scrabble players, time to rethink your game because 300 new words are coming your way, including some long-awaited gems: OK and ew, to name a few.

Merriam-Webster released the sixth edition of “The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary” on Monday, four years after the last freshening up. The company, at the behest of Scrabble owner Hasbro Inc., left out one possibility under consideration for a hot minute — RBI — after consulting competitive players who thought it potentially too contentious. There was a remote case to be made since RBI has morphed into an actual word, pronounced rib-ee.

But that’s OK because, “OK.”

“OK is something Scrabble players have been waiting for, for a long time,” said lexicographer Peter Sokolowski, editor at large at Merriam-Webster. “Basically two- and three-letter words are the lifeblood of the game.”

There’s more good news in qapik, adding to an arsenal of 20 playable words beginning with q that don’t need a u. Not that Scrabblers care all that much about definitions, qapik is a monetary unit in Azerbaijan.

“Every time there’s a word with q and no u, it’s a big deal,” Sokolowski said. “Most of these are obscure.”

There are some sweet scorers now eligible for play, including bizjet, and some magical vowel dumps, such as arancini, those Italian balls of cooked rice. Bizjet, meaning — yes — a small plane used for business, would be worth a whopping 120 points on an opening play, but only if it’s made into a plural with an s. That’s due to the 50-point bonus for using all seven tiles and the double word bonus space usually played at the start.

The Springfield, Massachusetts-based dictionary company sought counsel from the North American Scrabble Players Association when updating the book, Sokolowski said, “to make sure that they agree these words are desirable.”

Sokolowski has a favorite among the new words but not, primarily, because of Scrabble scores. “It’s macaron,” he said, referring to the delicate French sandwich cookie featuring different flavors and fillings.

“I just like what it means,” he said.

Merriam-Webster put out the first official Scrabble dictionary in 1976. Before that, the game’s rules called for any desk dictionary to be consulted. Since an official dictionary was created, it has been updated every four to eight years, Sokolowski said.

There are other new entries Sokolowski likes, from a wordsmith’s view.

“I think ew is interesting because it expresses something new about what we’re seeing in language, which is to say that we are now incorporating more of what you might call transcribed speech. Sounds like ew or mm-hmm, or other things like coulda or kinda. Traditionally, they were not in the dictionary but because so much of our communication is texting and social media that is written language, we are finding more transcribed speech and getting a new group of spellings for the dictionary,” he said.

Like ew, there’s another interjection now in play, yowza, along with a word some might have thought was already allowed: zen.

There’s often chatter around Scrabble boards over which foreign words have been accepted into English to the degree they’re playable. Say hello to schneid, another of the new kids, this one with German roots. It’s a sports term for a losing streak. Other foreigners added because they predominantly no longer require linguistic white gloves, such as italics or quotation marks: bibimbap, cotija and sriracha.

Scrabble was first trademarked as such in 1948, after it was thought up under a different name in 1933 by Alfred Mosher Butts, an out-of-work architect in Poughkeepsie, New York. Interest in the game picked up in the early 1950s, according to legend, when the president of Macy’s happened upon it while on vacation.

Now, the official dictionary holds more than 100,000 words. Other newcomers Sokolowski shared are aquafaba, beatdown, zomboid, twerk, sheeple, wayback, bokeh, botnet, emoji, facepalm, frowny, hivemind, puggle and nubber.

 
…

After spearheading an epic, 18-hour documentary on the Vietnam War, acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns has turned to more personal subject matter — one that knows him very intimately, too.

Burns tackles the famed Mayo Clinic in his next film, exploring the history of the innovative Rochester, Minnesota-based hospital that has been dubbed “The Miracle in a Cornfield.” It has treated luminaries such as the Dalai Lama — and Burns.

The first time Burns went, he was immediately impressed by the level and detail of his medical care, like the patient was at the center, not the doctor. “I began to get curious about why this was so different from any other health care experience I’d had,” he said.

The result is the two-hour documentary The Mayo Clinic: Faith, Hope, Science, which starts with the hospital’s birth during a tornado in 1883 and ends with the modern-day Mayo, state-of-the-art facilities over several campuses that treat up to 14,000 patients in 24 hours.

“The Mayo is just a quintessentially American story, just as baseball is a quintessentially American subject, as are the national parks, the Civil War,” Burns said. “And this was a story firing on all cylinders, at least as far as I felt. And it was a story that I don’t think had been fully understood.”

The documentary — directed by Burns, Erik Ewers and Christopher Loren Ewers — features the voices of Tom Hanks, Sam Waterston and Blythe Danner, as well as familiar touches: Peter Coyote narrates, there’s rousing music by Aaron Copeland and Scott Joplin, and evocative slow-scans of old photographs known as “the Ken Burns effect.”

The film is part of a documentary film empire Burns has on tap. Upcoming are works on the history of country music, Ernest Hemingway, Muhammad Ali, Benjamin Franklin and the American Revolution, as well as deep dives into crime and punishment in America and civil rights during President Lyndon Johnson.

“I’m plotted out to 2030 — God and funding willing,” he said with a laugh. “As much as I’d like to believe that I pick projects, in fact I think they pick me. And they pick me because they’re just quintessential American stories, whatever they might be.”

Burns has built a reputation for capturing sweeping historic moments with intimate details of peoples’ lives, tackling topics ranging from the Brooklyn Bridge to baseball, from Mark Twain to jazz. His films make the past come alive: Burns was once escorted out of an Alabama church by state troopers from people still upset by the Civil War’s outcome.

Mayo’s ‘secret sauce’

The Mayo film begins with the unusual collaboration by Dr. W.W. Mayo — “a doctor who worshipped Darwin,” Burns said — and a group of Franciscan nuns who began working with Mayo to help tornado victims in 1883.

The hospital adopted a salary-based model of teamwork — not based on ordering tests or a revolving door of patients — that is said to encourage innovation, time with patients and collaboration. In the film, Tom Brokaw and John McCain endorse its methods.

So does co-director Ewers, who started the project not as a Mayo patient but ended up one. He had been suffering from intestinal problems for 20 years and had been given seven different diagnoses without finding relief. While he was filming the Mayo documentary, its doctors reached out.

“They diagnosed it in two days,” Ewers said.

Burns calls Mayo’s formula a “secret sauce” — one that also manages to have poor patients get free care — and hopes it can offer answers to America’s health care problems.

“We were making a film about the history the Mayo Clinic, but realized that in their story and in their example might be a way for us all to re-enter a conversation about the essential question: What do we owe each other in terms of taking care of each other?” he said.

Hard-won perspective

Burns’ inimitable visual style is sometimes mocked, but the filmmaker isn’t in a rush to embrace flashy special effects, something he calls “all sizzle and no steak.” He admits to dragging his heels on embracing digital cameras and computer editing because he simply liked splicing film stock. But that doesn’t mean he’s inflexible — he used drones in the Mayo film.

“There’s a lot of sleek hares out there who are racing past the turtle that we are,” he said. “We make long films. And if you’re going to watch a long film, we have to make sure that we honor the attention you’re giving to us with an equal care in the crafting of it.”

The work is painstaking. For the documentary on country music, he estimates his team has poured over 100,000 photographs and scanned 60,000 of them — only to use less than 3,000. “I use the analogy of maple syrup: It takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup,” Burns said.

By delving into America’s past so much, Burns has learned a lot about human nature, but he dislikes the cliche that history repeats itself. He prefers to quote Mark Twain, who said “History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes.”

His work has given him hard-won perspective. When people during the financial crisis in 2007 began evoking the Great Depression, Burns knew his history. He replied that if animals in the zoos were being shot for food, then it was an apt analogy.

“That’s what history can do. It’s a kind of an armor, or at least a thermal layer, that protects you from the chill of the present moment,” he said.
…

Celine Dion has announced she will end her Las Vegas residency next year.

The singer announced on social media Monday that she will leave Caesars Palace in June 2019.

Dion says the decision brings mixed emotions as the Colosseum venue has been a big part of her life for the past 20 years.

This will mark the end of her second long-running residency at Caesars Palace.

Dion has performed nearly 1,100 shows there since 2003. The first time was from 2003 until 2007. Her current residency began in 2011.

Tickets for next year’s shows go on sale Tuesday.

Her final concert will be June 8, 2019.
…

Comedian Bill Cosby will likely learn his fate this week as the sentencing phase in his sexual assault trial begins Monday near Philadelphia.

Cosby was convicted in April on three counts of aggravated indecent assault against former Temple University administrator Andrea Constand.

Under sentencing guidelines, Cosby could get as much as 30 years in prison, which would be a life sentence for the 81-year-old entertainer.

His attorneys are expected to appeal to the judge to sentence Cosby to house arrest because of his fragile health. Cosby is legally blind.

The judge could also sentence Cosby to a short stay in prison.

Two women who say Cosby sexually assaulted them in the 1980s say he deserves to spend time in prison.

One of the alleged victims, Chelan Lasha, told reporters Sunday she wants Cosby to get the maximum time in prison, saying she still has nightmares about the assault.

After a mistrial during the first case against him in 2017, a jury convicted Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting Constand at his Philadelphia home in 2004. Constand came to Cosby’s house seeking career advice because he was a Temple alumnus.

Cosby denied the charge and said any sexual contact he had with Constand was consensual.

About 60 women have alleged Cosby sexually assaulted them dating back to the 1960s, when Cosby became famous. Constand’s case is the only one to come to trial.

Cosby is best known for his 1980s television series The Cosby Show, which solidified his now destroyed image as a wise and genial family man.
…

Tiger Woods scored his first victory in more than five years on Sunday, completing a two-shot win at the Tour Championship to crown a fairy tale comeback after a near two-year absence.

The 42-year-old, 14-time major winner carded a one-over-par 71 at Atlanta’s East Lake Golf Course to claim the 80th title of his glittering career.

Woods, who finished with an 11-under-par aggregate 269, raised his arms in delight after the victory, with several thousand fans ringing the green roaring appreciation.

Woods admitted he had nearly been overcome with emotion as he walked up the 18th fairway.

“I was having a hard time not crying coming up the last hole,” Woods said.

“I kept saying ‘Hey, I could still play this out of bounds.’ But once I got the ball on the green I gave (caddie) Joey (LaCava) a high five because I knew it was done.”

It was an emotional finale to a year which saw Woods return to the highest level after he had once feared he may never play golf again.

“It was just a grind out there,” Woods said of his final round. “I loved every bit of it. The fight, the grind, the tough conditions.

“Beginning of the year (winning) was a tall order. But as the year progressed I found my swing and put the pieces together and I knew I could do it.”

The victory erased any last lingering doubts about Woods’ ability to compete at the highest level, something he had served notice of with top 10 finishes at the British Open and US PGA Championships.

Woods, who returned in January after missing almost the entire previous two years with a debilitating back injury, held a three-shot advantage heading into the final round.

A birdie on his opening hole extended Woods’ lead to four shots to give the former world number one a dream start.

With the remainder of the 30-man field struggling to make any inroads, Woods then played solid if unspectacular golf to keep a stranglehold on the lead.

A bogey on the 10th was a mere blip, with Woods re-establishing a five-shot cushion at 13 under after rolling in a 13-foot birdie putt on the par-four 13th.

Billy Horschel closed the gap to four shots after after a four-under-par final round 66, but Woods looked to be in control.

Woods, however, gave his army of fans roaring him on a scare though when back-to-back bogeys on the 15th and 16th holes cut his lead to two with two to play.

But he steadied the ship with a par on the 17th and then closed out the win with a par on 18.

The victory was Woods’s first since his win at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in August 2013.

Meanwhile England’s Olympic champion Justin Rose ensured he walks off with the FedEx Cup playoff title after finishing on six under for a share of fourth.
…

Inside a hidden vault in Los Angeles, California, is a treasure trove of cars from around the world. It’s the collection of the Petersen Automotive Museum, and it is now open to the public. As Faiza Elmasry tells us, visiting the vault is like traveling back in time, exploring the history of auto-making. Faith Lapidus narrates.
…

The consequences of Afghanistan’s increasingly deadly war are weighing heaviest on the nation’s civilians, with women bearing the brunt of the violence. The Taliban banned music and girls education, and restricted outdoor activities of women when the group was controlling most of Afghanistan.

But violence and social pressures have not deterred members of the country’s nascent orchestra of mostly young girls from using music to “heal wounds” and promote women’s rights in the strictly conservative Muslim society.

The ensemble, known as Zohra, was founded in 2014 as part of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM) in Kabul, where suicide bombings lately have become routine.

​Hope and music

Students and trainers are not losing hope and regularly come to the city’s only institute to rehearse and learn new lessons, says Ahmed Naser Sarmast, the director of ANIM and the founder of the orchestra. Zohra is the name of a music goddess in Persian literature, he explained.

The musicologist spoke to VOA while visiting neighboring Pakistan earlier this month with the young ensemble to perform in Islamabad as part of celebrations marking the 99th anniversary of Afghanistan’s Independence Day. Kabul’s embassy in Islamabad organized and arranged for the orchestra’s first visit to Pakistan.

Despite the many challenges in Afghanistan, Sarmast said, student enrollment has consistently grown and more parents are bringing their children to the institute to study music. Around 300 students are studying not only music at the institute but other subjects, including the Quran, he said.

​Advances for women

Negin Khpolwak, the orchestra’s first woman conductor, says Afghanistan has made significant advances in terms of promoting women’s rights in the past 17 years. She says there is a need to sustain the momentum irrespective of rising violence.

“We need to stand up to protect those gains and we need to open the doors for other Afghan girls,” Khpolwak said when asked whether deadly attacks around the country are reversing the gains women have made.

But violence alone is not the only challenge for women and girls, especially those who want to study music, she said.

“When you are going in the street with your instrument to the school and they are saying bad words to you and if you are giving a concert in public they are telling the bad words to you. But we are not caring about it,” Khpolwak said.

​Ethnic groups help each other

Sarmast says that girls and boys in the orchestra come from different Afghan ethnic groups and they help each other when needed. 

“It’s hope for the future,” he said.

Ethnic rivalries have been a hallmark of hostilities in Afghanistan and continue to pose a challenge to efforts promoting peace and stability.

“I strongly believe without arts and culture there cannot be security and we are using the soft power of music to make a small contribution to bringing peace and stability in Afghanistan and at the same time using this beautiful, if I can call it a beautiful weapon, to transform our community,” the director said.

Some of the members of the Afghan orchestra were born and brought up in refugee camps in Pakistan, which still hosts around 3 million registered and unregistered Afghan families displaced by years of war, poverty, persecution and drought.

“We are using the healing power of music to look after the wounds of the Afghan people as well as the Pakistani people. We are here with the message of peace, brotherhood and freedom,” Sarmast said.

Afghanistan and Pakistan have experienced years of terrorist attacks, including massive casualties on both sides of their long shared border. Bilateral relations are marred by mistrust and suspicion.

The countries blame each other for supporting terrorist attacks. Afghans allege that sanctuaries in Pakistan have enabled Taliban insurgents to sustain and expand their violent acts inside Afghanistan. Pakistan rejects the charges.

The Islamist insurgency controls or is attempting to control nearly half of Afghanistan.
…

The consequences of Afghanistan’s increasingly deadly war are weighing the heaviest on the nation’s civilians. But violence and social pressures have not deterred members of the country’s nascent orchestra of mostly young girls from using music to “heal wounds” and promote women’s rights in the strictly conservative Muslim society. Ayaz Gul reports from Islamabad.
…