Villager is Another Year Old Today...

Unique Building * MUMOK House Attack (Vienna, Austria)

Erin Wurm is an Austrian artist with a unique perspective on life. Highly regarded and very influential within the art scene for some time, Erwin Wurm’s work may not be all that familiar to most Villagers.

Museum Moderner Kunst (MUMOK) is the largest art museum in Austria. They pride themselves on the collection of modern art from the 20th and 21st century.

Erin Wurm and MOMAK combined to create some architectural buzz in 2006. That is when the so-called 'Attack House' was born. Wurm installed the house on the outside facade of the MUMOK building. Wurm indicates that 'House Attack is a symbol for an everyday occurrence as well as small-mindedness.'



I found a video that showed how 'House Attack' was created.






Every day I'm amazed at the things that people are paid cash-money to do...

Tea Party Wants to Re-Write History Books to Give Positive Spin on Slavery

Did any of you see the passionate comments by GOP candidate Rick Santorum towards the end of the debate last night? He was answering the question about what impact religion would have on his work as president if he were elected. He talked about the nation's founding fathers and the fact that "God-given rights" were at the heart of the Declaration of Independence.

Santorum noted that 'God-given rights' can't be given away by the government. As he was talking I kept thinking to myself about the Africans in America at the time of the Declaration of Independence. I wondered what Santorum would say about the "God-given rights" of those men and women who were enslaved by our Founding Fathers? Did they have any "God-given rights"?

Now, I learn that there are some in Santorum's Republican Party who no longer want to be troubled by the inconvenience of our nation's history of slavery. There are some GOP (aka, Tea Party) in Tennessee who want to re-write the history books being used in our public schools to give a positive spin on slavery. [SOURCE]

These Republican (or Tea Party) activists say that the way textbooks are worded now can portray out founding fathers in a negative light.

"Slavery is of course portrayed in the textbooks nowadays I'm sure as a totally negative thing. Had there not been slavery in the south, the economy would've fallen," said Tea Party Activist Brian Rieck.

I guess one person's dehumanizing atrocity is another person's economic stimulus agenda.

Unique Building * The Crooked House (Sopot, Poland)

This is a very unique building! The Crooked House was built in 2003. What inspired the architects were Per Dahlberg's drawings. You'll found numerous beauty shops and stores inside along with the branch office for RMF radio broadcasting company. It lies in the Bohaterów Monte Cassino street, the town's most prominent promenade.

I wonder if the building would appear straight and normal if you were drunk?

GOP Wingnuts Gone Wild: Jan Brewer and Mark Oxner

It looks like the dog whistles that GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has been blowing are having their effect. Arizona governor Jan Brewer appears to have lost her mind while welcoming the President of the United States.

The level of disrespect by the Republican Party during the past three years of the Obama presidency is unprecedented. And Jan Brewer wasn't the only one demonstrating a lack of respect to President Obama.

Congressional candidate Mark Oxner thought it would be a good idea to share a political advertisement in which our nation's first African American president is shown on a slave ship. Are Republicans so disrespectful of Black people in this nation that they don't see where shyt like this is NOT funny?





I usually remind people that it's never a good idea to use Adolph Hitler as a comparison for anybody at anytime. I guess I'll need to also note that it is never a good idea to show a Black man on a slave ship. Who knew that an educated adult human being wouldn't know that unwritten rule of common decency?

Rest In Peace: Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993)

Born in Baltimore, Maryland on July 2, 1908, Thurgood Marshall was the grandson of a slave. His father, William Marshall, instilled in him from youth an appreciation for the United States Constitution and the rule of law.

After graduating from Frederick Douglass High School in 1925, Thurgood followed his brother, William Aubrey Marshall, to Lincoln University in Chester County, Pennsylvania. His classmates at Lincoln included a distinguished group of future Black leaders such as the poet and author Langston Hughes, the future President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, and musician Cab Calloway.

Just before graduation, he married his first wife, Vivian "Buster" Burey. Their twenty-five year marriage ended with her death from cancer in 1955.

In 1930, he applied to the University of Maryland Law School, but was denied admission because he was Black. This was an event that was to haunt him and direct his future professional life.

Thurgood sought admission and was accepted at the Howard University Law School that same year and came under the immediate influence of the dynamic new dean, Charles Houston, who instilled in all of his students the desire to apply the tenets of the Constitution to all Americans.

Paramount in Houston's outlook was the need to overturn the 1898 Supreme Court ruling, Plessy v. Ferguson which established the legal doctrine called, "separate but equal." Marshall's first major court case came in 1933 when he successfully sued the University of Maryland to admit a young African American Amherst University graduate named Donald Gaines Murray.

Applauding Marshall's victory, author H.L. Mencken wrote that the decision of denial by the University of Maryland Law School was "brutal and absurd," and they should not object to the "presence among them of a self-respecting and ambitious young Afro-American well prepared for his studies by four years of hard work in a class A college."

Thurgood Marshall followed his Howard University mentor, Charles Houston to New York and later became Chief Counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). During this period, Mr. Marshall was asked by the United Nations and the United Kingdom to help draft the constitutions of the emerging African nations of Ghana and what is now Tanzania. It was felt that the person who so successfully fought for the rights of America's oppressed minority would be the perfect person to ensure the rights of the White citizens in these two former European colonies.

After amassing an impressive record of Supreme Court challenges to state-sponsored discrimination, including the landmark Brown v. Board decision in 1954, President John F. Kennedy appointed Thurgood Marshall to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In this capacity, he wrote over 150 decisions including support for the rights of immigrants, limiting government intrusion in cases involving illegal search and seizure, double jeopardy, and right to privacy issues. Biographers

Michael Davis and Hunter Clark note that, "none of his (Marshall's) 98 majority decisions was ever reversed by the Supreme Court."

In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson appointed Judge Marshall to the office of U.S. Solicitor General. Before his subsequent nomination to the United States Supreme Court in 1967, Thurgood Marshall won 14 of the 19 cases he argued before the Supreme Court on behalf of the government. Indeed, Thurgood Marshall represented and won more cases before the United States Supreme Court than any other American.

Until his retirement from the highest court in the land, Justice Marshall established a record for supporting the voiceless American. Having honed his skills since the case against the University of Maryland, he developed a profound sensitivity to injustice by way of the crucible of racial discrimination in this country. As an Associate Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall leaves a legacy that expands that early sensitivity to include all of America's voiceless.

Justice Marshall died on January 24, 1993.

I invite all villagers to use the COMMENTS section ('Village Voices') to share your thoughts, memories or insights on Thurgood Marshall.

NIHERST Awards in Science and Technology (Trinidad and Tobago)

The National Institute of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology (NIHERST) is a statutory body established to promote science, technology and higher education in Trinidad and Tobago consistent with national development goals. Trinidad and Tobago has nurtured many sons and daughters who have left their mark in science and technology to the benefit of peoples in the Caribbean and around the world. For many, their contributions have gone unrecognized and unrecorded.

The NIHERST Awards in Science and Technology seek to recognize and reward nationals for outstanding achievements in science and technology, to provide positive role models for our youth to emulate, and to record our scientific heritage. In 2012, NIHERST together with the Ministry of Science, Technology and Tertiary Education and the Caribbean Academy of Science (CAS) will be presenting these awards.

Call for Nominations

• The Fenrick De Four Award for Engineering - Fenrick De Four was the lead author of almost every national engineering code and standard in Trinidad and Tobago. He was a founding member, President and Fellow of the Association of Professional Engineers of Trinidad and Tobago (APETT), and the first Chairman of the Board of Engineers of Trinidad and Tobago.

• The Emmanuel Ciprian Amoroso Award for Medical Sciences - Professor Emmanuel Ciprian Amoroso was a distinguished professor in the field of medical science research and education. He was famous for his studies on the placenta and was a pioneer in the development of the fields of endocrinology and reproductive biology.

• The Rudranath Capildeo Award for Applied Science & Technology - Dr. Rudranath Capildeo was renowned for his intellectual contribution to the fields of applied mathematics and physics. He was also a gifted educator of mathematics and physics and taught at University College London among other institutions.

• The Julian Kenny Award for Natural Sciences - Professor Julian Stanley Kenny was an eminent zoologist, author and columnist. He taught for over 25 years at the UWI, St. Augustine and was highly regarded internationally for his extensive knowledge and seminal research on the ecology of Trinidad and Tobago.

• The Anthony Williams Award for Technological Innovation in Arts & Culture - Anthony Williams is an early steelpan innovator. He designed the pattern of the placement of the notes on the instrument; added wheels to the bass drums; improved the way pans were made; and initiated the first scientific study on the instrument by testing his ideas at CARIRI.

• The Frank Rampersad Award for Junior Scientist - NIHERST’s first president, Frank Rampersad, was a brilliant economist who supported indigenous research and development and human capacity building in fields of science and engineering that were critical to economic development.

• The Ranjit Kumar Award for Junior Engineer - Ranjit Kumar was a well-known legislator and civil engineer. He planned, designed and constructed the first dual carriageway in Trinidad and Tobago, known today as Wrightson Road, completed in 1940.

For further details and application forms please visit http://www.niherst.gov.tt/.

Two thoughts come to mind for me. First, do we have any 'villagers' who are from Trinadad and Tobago. Second, I wonder if the Miss Universe 1977, Penny Commissiong, will be involved in this award on any level? She remains one of the most beautiful women that I can ever remember!