Forever Stamp

I just learned that the US postage stamp with the liberty bell is known as the "forever stamp" - meaning that no matter what the price increase from now to 2028 and beyond, this stamp will always be valid for the basic first class rate of a letter weighing less than one ounce. This stamp was issued in 2007. So stock up on forever stamps and know that even though they don't say how much they are worth, they will forever be worth it.

Author explores Jewish-Cuban population

BY NAZBANOO PAHLAVI in this week's www.suncommunitynewspapers.com

I was already familiar with the term “Jewban,” the catchy moniker meant for people of both Jewish and Cuban origin. But at a February 12 book signing at Barnes and Noble in Encino, I discovered that this term reflects a specific community that lives in Miami and represents a sort of bridge between the Jews of South Beach and the Cubans of Havana.

Cultural anthropologist Ruth Behar has put together a collection of stories and photographs documenting the small population of Jews in Cuba in her new book, An Island Called Home: Returning to Jewish Cuba, published by Rutgers University Press.

Jewish origins on the island go back to the turn of the twentieth century when small numbers of Americans migrated there, soon followed by an influx of Sephardic Turks and later Ashkenazi Jews from Poland and Russia. Strict immigration quotas in the 1920s had forced many aspiring to live in the United States to settle in Cuba instead.

Luckily, Behar said, many fell in love with their life in the tropics and established a strong presence by building synagogues, community centers, businesses, and planning a future on this unlikely island home. In the 1950s, the population of Jews in Cuba grew to about 15,000.

Behar’s interest in this unusual group is not purely anthropological, but also deeply personal – Behar, who is of both Turkish and Polish Jewish decent, was born and raised in Cuba until the age of four, when the Castro regime convinced her family to emigrate. During that time, she said, the Jewish community experienced a sort of exodus, with about 90 percent opting to leave, mostly for the U.S.

“Jews didn’t leave because they were Jews. They left because they were Cuban,” Behar stressed to her audience. The majority left their homes because of the nationalization of property, including small, Jewish-owned mom and pop stores, and a general dislike for working for the new government. Currently, the Jewish population in Cuba is about 1,000.

Behar, who moved with her family to New York, spoke Spanish at home and experienced a melding of her unique cultures growing up as an American. “We celebrated Passover, and then the next week we would go and eat at a Cuban restaurant,” she said.

Behar recalled her early inability to relate with other Jewish Cubans, especially those in Miami, because many had no intention of returning to Cuba. Behar, on the other hand, yearned to go back and was even discouraged by her own family – “that chapter of our diasporic wondering is over,” she remembered hearing.

This set her off on a “spiritual journey” where she began making regular trips to Cuba through the 1990s. The personal relationships she created there and the stories she heard became the source of An Island Called Home.

Ruth Behar is a longtime Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan and recipient of several grants including the MacArthur Foundation genius fellowship and Fulbright award. She received Ph.D. from Princeton University, and is currently a visiting distinguished professor at the University of Miami.

Yaroslavsky slams density bonus law at Valley VOTE

BY NAZBANOO PAHLAVI in this week's www.suncommunitynewspapers.com

Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky addressed land use and the state density bonus law SB 1818 at Valley VOTE’s (Voters Organized Toward Empowerment) February 21 meeting in Van Nuys.

Yaroslavsky criticized the Los Angeles City Council for failing to fully discuss controversial issues before voting to adopt the law, calling SB 1818 the first step toward reversing several important planning restrictions enacted in the 1980s and 90s. These include Proposition U, which Yaroslavsky helped pass in 1986, aiming to tighten the reigns on property developers.

“In the absence of people speaking out to their elected officials, the elected officials will do what comes naturally – and they go to meet business,” Yaroslavsky said.

SB 1818 was passed as a state law in 2004 entitling developers to obtain density bonuses if their proposed projects include at least five percent affordable housing. Such bonuses, or what Yaroslavsky terms “exceedences,” include increased height, a smaller number of required parking spaces, and side yard and rear yard set-back reductions.

The definition of affordable housing is determined by a federally devised schema based on very low, low and moderate percentages of the median annual household income, in addition to senior citizen housing.

Yaroslavsky noted that rent-controlled units could be demolished to build high-end condominiums, forcing out residents unable to afford a new home. This was the situation in a West Los Angeles building he cited whose so-called affordable units were priced around $500,000.

Although Yaroslavsky said he supports high-density projects along public transit lines, this ordinance would affect single family home neighborhoods by clogging up street parking, allowing large, multi-family projects, and discouraging eco-friendly home improvements such as the installation of solar panes – which would be made ineffective due to shadows cast by tall buildings.

The Supervisor said only two entities have the power to refute the bonuses awarded by the planning office – the developer himself and “the sucker who has to live next door.”

He called the City Planning Department, headed by Gail Goldberg, a “new regime” caving in to the pro-growth platform of the mayor and City Hall.

Yaroslavsky urged neighborhood organizations to speak up to counter developers and their attorneys, who have been vocal at city council meetings.

“They’ve used this as a pretext to promote greater density, greater height, all under the guise of affordable housing. It’s a bad ordinance. It’s a bad law,” he said.

Also at the meeting, Valley VOTE member George Truesdell addressed plans for Los Angeles city clerk Frank Martinez to take over the monitoring of neighborhood council elections.

Update

In case you are looking, the jpgs for a couple of my recent articles are not yet uploaded, but are on their way. I will also have articles coming out in a few days, so look out for those too!

Don't be quick to count out a Clinton

By NANCY BENAC, Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON - History shows the folly of counting out a Clinton.

If Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign is looking more and more like the Titanic, she may yet prove to be the unsinkable Molly Brown.

Ask Mike McCurry about the Clintons' resilience. McCurry worked for Bob Kerrey, one of Bill Clinton's chief rivals in the 1992 presidential campaign. He remembers the day details broke about Clinton's efforts to avoid the Vietnam draft, just weeks after allegations had surfaced of an affair with Gennifer Flowers.

"He's toast," McCurry told co-workers on the Kerrey campaign. "He's never going to survive this." McCurry went on to become Clinton's chief White House spokesman.

Hillary Clinton was a huge factor in her husband's 1992 victory — and in any number of other recoveries during his agony-and-ecstasy political career. Now, she's the one attempting to rebound from 11 straight primary and caucus losses to Barack Obama.

Obama is well aware of the Clintons' supersized survival instincts. Aides say privately that's one reason the Illinois senator has continued to go after her so directly rather than adopting a traditional front-runner's strategy of ignoring his rival.

"I'd hold the obituary" for Clinton, says David Gergen, who served as an adviser to four presidents, including Bill Clinton. "She, like he, has enormous inner reserves upon which to draw. That's why, no matter what else happens, you can't discount the possibility that she's going to bounce back."

She's already done it once this year, pulling off an upset in New Hampshire after taking a shellacking in the leadoff Iowa caucuses.

"We're going to keep pushing as hard as we can," she promised after placing third in Iowa. She's been saying much the same thing as she fights for victories in Texas and Ohio next week to revive her candidacy.

Trite as that may sound, it's part of the secret to the Clintons' success.

"They never say die," said Mary Matalin, who served as deputy campaign manager of the unsuccessful Bush re-election campaign in 1992. "In all the years I've been watching them, it never occurs to them to throw in the towel. There's no 'What's my graceful exit strategy?' They don't have that gene."

Democratic strategist Jennifer Palmieri, an eight-year veteran of the Clinton White House, sees the same mettle.

"They take a very long view of things, and they expect to win," said Palmieri. "It's something that not enough people perhaps on the Democratic side do — expect to win."

The notion of a former first lady running for a Senate seat from a state in which she had no political connections was written off at first, but now Clinton is in her second term holding the New York Senate seat once occupied by Robert F. Kennedy.

The Clintons' boom-and-bust cycle began long before they arrived on the national scene.

It started with a bust: In 1974, Bill Clinton made an unsuccessful run for Congress at age 28. Two years later, he bounced back and was elected Arkansas attorney general. And two years after that, at 32, he became the nation's youngest governor.

Then, defeat again: In 1980, done in by what he admitted was the arrogance of youth, Clinton lost his bid for re-election to a second term as governor. Two years later, redemption. He pulled off a comeback and never lost another race.

Along the way, the Clintons proved themselves to be tough street fighters.

In 1990, when Gov. Clinton faced a strong re-election challenge, it was first lady Hillary who crashed a news conference held by the opponent and undercut him with documents showing he had praised Clinton's performance as governor.

"That is a group that can take a punch and they can lay a punch," said Palmieri. "They are smart and they're fearless, but they're not reckless."

The Clinton roller coaster ride was far from over.

The 1992 presidential campaign amounted to a running revival show for the Clintons, and the presidency unfolded like a sequel.

It was almost always a team effort, and Hillary Clinton had a starring role in one early and prominent defeat, the ill-fated health-care reform effort.

In 1994, after Paula Jones filed a sexual harassment suit against Bill, it was Hillary who first interviewed lawyer Robert Bennett about helping fend off what Clinton insiders were calling the latest "bimbo eruption." There were other problems, as well. The Whitewater mess had followed the Clintons north from Arkansas, and Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr was investigating.

The midterm elections that year, in which Republicans seized control of the House and Senate, served as resounding repudiation to the president.

By mid-1995, the Clinton presidency was in free fall. Internal polls found that two-thirds of Americans ruled out voting to re-elect him. Aides cringed when Clinton felt compelled to insist at a news conference, "The president is relevant."

Through it all, Hillary Clinton was "a steadying force," Gergen said. "One of the reasons this marriage has worked for both of them is that he could always look to her for help in getting through things."

Bill Clinton was chastened but forged ahead, adapting to the changed political dynamic. In his 1996 State of the Union address, the president who had come to office promising to do so much instead declared, "The era of big government is over."

Voters in 1996 rewarded him with re-election, and he set out to exceed the low expectations set for second-term presidents.

Those efforts were overshadowed by his involvement with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The ensuing investigation and impeachment melodrama tested the Clintons' resilience and their marriage as never before, but they persevered and Hillary Clinton emerged stronger than ever.

She gave a hint of that last week when she told the audience at a Democratic debate, "I think everybody here knows I've lived through some crises and some challenging moments in my life." And that may explain her ability to press forward when the odds appear so daunting.

When it comes to the Clintons, says Palmieri, "The one thing you can almost always say about whatever situation you're in is that you've seen worse. So they don't get rattled. They have a much better perspective about how to deal with difficult days."

___

Associated Press Writer Nedra Pickler contributed to this report.

Exploring Mystical Turkey

Article in this week's Sun Community Newspapers
www.suncommunitynewspapers.com

Exploring Mystical Turkey
BY NAZBANOO PAHLAVI


At 6 a.m. I awoke to the passionate call of a man’s voice, filled with a soft urgency, transmitted by electronic megaphone from somewhere outside my hotel window. As a first-time visitor to Turkey and the Middle East, this traditional call to prayer was my initiation into the Muslim world. A fitting prelude, I thought, for my pilgrimage in honor of Jalaluddin Rumi, the mystical Sufi poet whose 800th birthday was the purpose of my recent trip through the country.

Sufism is the mystical arm of Islam practiced by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Local Angelenos might be familiar with the Sufi practices of the whirling dervishes, a group of whom have performed at UCLA, and whose methodical turning in their long white robes and tall brown hats represents a means of getting closer to the Divine. UNESCO officially designated 2007 as the year of Rumi and celebrations were held in the city of Konya in south-central Turkey, the poet’s place of birth and burial. The city was brimming with scores of pilgrims from as close as neighboring Iran to as far as China and the United States.

As I traveled with an Istanbul-based Sufi music group, my journey was shaped around all things mystical. I felt this in every area from the tombs of well-known Sufi sheiks (teachers) to the Rumi-inspired knick-knacks in the bazaar shops. More than anything, I witnessed it when our bus broke down on the first day of the bayram holidays that mark the end of the Ramadan fasting period. A humble family in the countryside welcomed us into their modest home, offered us tea and fresh goat’s milk, and exemplified the hospitality and warmth I often witnessed across the region.

Istanbul itself is an enigmatic city and the only one of its size to straddle two continents – Europe to the east and Asia to the west. I saw this melding of east and west in the modern, retail-filled streets of the cosmopolitan Taksim area that teemed with youths eager for the nightlife. I saw it too at the striking Hagia Sophia, a house of both Muslim and Christian history, which welcomed tourists daily and beckoned seagulls every night to circle its grandly lit dome.

Before setting off on my trip, I had heard a lot of good things from friends who had been to Turkey. I discovered this has less to do with place and more to do with people. One member of the music group I traveled with – a German native who married the group’s founder – said something I found particularly fitting. She told me that the people of the Occident think with their heads, while those of the Middle East think with their hearts. Whether suitable or not in politics, it proved a pleasure in travel.

Obama Camps calls this the 11th hour? How does that make Pennsylvania feel, Senator?

So the Obama camp, after always claiming victory even when he was an underdog, is now calling this the "11th" hour when still may states are left to vote - even through the month of May. He likes where he is, thank you very much, and doesn't feel much like competing anymore. My friend in Pennsylvania, who is a democrat and still undecided, represents scores of voters in the remaining states who, I'm certain, would not appreciate BO's attitude.

The most troubling stance the BO camp has taken is the stiff disacknowledgment of Florida and Michigan voters. Since when should bureaucracy stand in the way of the voice of the people? ''Now, when they believe it serves their political interests, they're trying to rewrite the rules,'' Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, told reporters in a telephone call. ``Now, at the 11th hour, the Clinton campaign is trying to rewrite rules that were firmly established, and I don't think there's a lot of appetite for that in the country or a lot of appetite for that at the DNC.'' (Taken from Miami Herald)

Hmmmmmmmmmm...doesn't sound very unifying to me. I would urge the Obama camp to find a way not to disenfranchise Florida and Michigan voters. Obama wants a change in Washington? How will he do that when he upholds rules that disenfrance voters and doesn't propose an amendment, an alternative, or a means to voice their votes? How can he talk change, when he can even do it in his campaign?