Jay Lazar Garfield (1955) is an American professor of
philosophy who specializes in Tibetan Buddhism.
He also specializes on the philosophy of mind, cognitive
science, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language, ethics, and hermeneutics.
He is currently Doris Silbert Professor in the Humanities at
Smith College, professor of philosophy at the University of Melbourne, visiting
professor of philosophy and Buddhist studies at Harvard Divinity School, and
Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the Central University of Tibetan Studies.
Dutch NGO "Dikke Vinger" ("Fat Finger") is a team of unpaid volunteers who work together in their spare time to create a better world for fat people. Fat Finger stands for connection between fat people, a critical and nuanced attitude, independence, accessibility and inclusion.
Jenny Klijnsmit is a blogger, blogging about acceptance and weight discrimination. She blogs for fat people who are fed up with being ashamed of their bodies and weight and tired of feeling guilty about their eating habits. She mainly writes about her own experiences as a fat cis woman.
In the world of Orthodox Judaism, men may run the synagogues
— but Lenora Garfinkel built them.
Lenora Garfinkel was born in
the Bronx in 1930. Garfinkel was one of the first women to
study architecture at the prestigious Cooper Union College in New York and went
on to build Jewish community buildings across the New York metropolitan area
over the course of a career spanning more than six decades. Her designs
included the massive Viznitz Chasidic synagogue in Kaser, the Atrium wedding
venue in Monsey, and multiple schools and ritual bath houses.
“There are very few frum architects with a sheitel with five kids that are specializing in frum buildings,” said Garfinkel’s daughter Letitia Dahan
Forspan. “She was an expert in the halachot of building religious buildings, mikvahs and
shuls based on halacha. That’s why they came to her. She sat with any rabbi making
these plans like one of them.”
Garfinkel died of COVID-19 on April 29, 2020 at the age of
89.
The Utrecht painter Johannes Moreelse worked for a few years in Rome, where he was influenced by the paintings of Caravaggio. He painted scenes in the style of Caravaggio, with unidealised half-length figures and big contrasts between light and dark.
The grinning man in this painting (c. 1630) represents Democritus, the laughing philosopher. He is laughing at the vanity of mankind and the transience of the world. Democritus forms a pair with Heraclitus, the weeping philosopher. Moreelse made several versions of the two philosophers.
Reuben Sinclair was born on his family farm near Lipton,
Saskatchewan, Canada. His birth certificate was registered on 5 December 1911,
but according to his older brothers, he was born in the summer of 1911.
His parents and his oldest siblings Samuel and Saul were
born in Ukraine and moved in the 1900s to Saskatchewan, where they were given
land by de Hirsch’s Jewish Colonization Association.
Sinclair joined the Royal Canadian Air Force during the
Second World War and was stationed in North Battleford, Saskatchewan.
In March 2021 at the age of 109, he received his COVID-19
vaccine, making him one of the oldest known people to receive the COVID-19
vaccine.
He became the oldest known living Canadian veteran of the
Second World War, following the death of 109-year-old Tom Lumby on 19 June
2021. He later became the oldest known living man born in Canada on 18
September 2021.
He became the oldest known living man in Canada, following
the death of 111-year-old Ja Hyung Lee on 12 February 2022.
He became the oldest known living veteran of the Second World
War, following the death of 111-year-old Ezra Hill on 4 October 2022.
Kevin Rowland (1953) is a British singer and musician best
known as the frontman for the pop band Dexys Midnight Runners (currently called
Dexys).
The band had several hits in the early 1980s, the most
notable being "Geno" and "Come On Eileen", both of which
reached number one on the UK Singles Chart.
Many of the group's songs were inspired by Rowland's Irish
ancestry and were recognisable through Rowland's idiosyncratic vocal style.
Kevin Rowland & Madeleine Hyland
When Dexys disbanded in 1987, Rowland recorded a solo album,
The Wanderer, which, together with its three singles, was a commercial failure.
His next release was not until 1999 when he recorded a collection of
interpretations of classic songs called My Beauty, a record mocked by the music
press at the time for the choice of songs, Rowland’s earnest delivery and,
above all else, the fact he chose to wear stockings and a pearl necklace for
the cover image.
Before his music career, Rowland worked as a hairdresser.
Charles Ferdinand Ramuz (1878 –1947) was a French-speaking
Swiss writer.
Ramuz was born and educated in Lausanne in the canton of Vaud. He taught briefly in nearby Aubonne,
and then in Weimar, Germany. In 1903, he left for Paris and remained there
until World War I. As part of his studies in Paris he wrote a thesis on the
poet Maurice de Guérin. In 1903, he published Le petit village, a collection of
poems.
In 1914, he returned to Switzerland. He wrote the libretto
for Igor Stravinsky's Histoire du soldat.
Sunday, May 28, 2023
Xiang-Ping Li is a Professor at the ECNU School of Social Development, Head of the Department of Sociology, and Director of the Center on Religion and Society at East China Normal University.
Dr. Li also holds many academic and professional positions, including being a board member of the Society of Religion in China and Vice President of the Society of Religion in Shanghai, among others.
Wang Ruowang (1918 –2001) was a Chinese author and
dissident who was imprisoned various times for political reasons by both the
Kuomintang and the Communist government of China for advocating reform and
liberalization.
He was most commonly known by his pen name,
"Ruowang", as a prolific essayist and literary critic.
Wang was a member of the Chinese Communist Party from 1937
to 1957, when he was expelled for holding "rightist views". He
rejoined the Communist Party 1979, but in 1987 he was again expelled by Deng
Xiaoping for promoting "bourgeois liberalization".
After his death in exile in New York City, he was widely
eulogized as one of the Chinese government's most significant social and
political critics.
Hillel (Harry) Furstenberg was born to German Jews in Nazi
Germany, in 1935 (originally named "Fürstenberg").
In 1939, shortly after Kristallnacht, his family escaped to
the United States and settled in New York City, escaping the Holocaust.
Furstenberg is a mathematician and professor emeritus at the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem. He is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
and U.S. National Academy of Sciences and a laureate of the Abel Prize and the
Wolf Prize in Mathematics.
Furstenberg gained attention at an early stage in his career
for producing an innovative topological proof of the infinitude of prime
numbers in 1955.
Anthony "Spice" Adams (1980) is an American
television host, actor, comedian, and former football defensive tackle.
After playing college football for Penn State, he was
drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in the second round of the 2003 NFL Draft,
for whom he played four seasons, followed by the Chicago Bears from 2007 to
2011.
After his playing career, he became involved in social media
and television. He is now a co-host of The Great American Baking Show, the
American adaptation of the popular Great British Bake Off.
Suspenders (American, Canadian English), or braces (British,
Australian English) are fabric or leather straps worn over the shoulders to
hold up skirts or trousers. The straps may be elasticated, either entirely or
only at attachment ends, and most straps are of woven cloth forming an X or Y
shape at the back.
There have been several precursors to suspenders throughout
the past 300 years, but modern suspenders were first popularised as
"braces" in 1822 by a London haberdasher Albert Thurston. They were
once almost universally worn, due to the high cut of mid-nineteenth and early
twentieth century skirts and trousers that made a belt impractical.
During the nineteenth century, suspenders were sometimes
called galluses. Samuel Clemens, known for his work as the author Mark Twain,
patented "Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments" (ADSG),
becoming one of the first to receive a United States patent for suspenders in
1871.
After losing popularity during World War I, when men became
accustomed to uniform belts, suspenders were still regular attire throughout
the 1920s.
Life magazine stated in 1938 that 60% of American men chose
belts over suspenders. Though the return of fuller-cut trousers in the 1940s
revived suspenders, they did not dominate over belts again to the same extent.
However, in the UK they remained the norm to wear with suits and dress
trousers.
Abdul-Qadir is a language learning specialist living in
Providence, Rhode Island.
Abdul has been a musician and teacher for many years in 7
countries around the world, with a love for wearing berets (especially the ecoJapanese models).
“Berets look amazing with every outfit and are great to wear
in the summer. They are casual enough to wear riding a bike or teaching a
class. The adjustable headband is great too because I cut my hair short once a
year and that way, I can always have a comfortable fit.”
Dr. Pouroto Ngaropo (Mataatua, Te Arawa, Tainui, Takitimu, Ngātokimatawhaorua) is a leading cultural ambassador for knowledge in mātauranga Māori, kawa and tikanga. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Auckland University of Technology (AUT).
Ngaropo drove the re-establishment of the breathtaking Iramoko Marae. This marae is nestled in the hills of Manawahe which provides a tranquil environment and a place of spiritual healing. Ngaropo also offers trail hikes and wairua guidance.
Iramoko Marae (Māori meeting house)
Ngaropo has been deputy chair of Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Awa. He participated in settlement negotiations for the iwi, and played a significant role in creating Māori health strategies that involved iwi throughout what was then the Bay of Plenty District Health Board region.
In 2019, he was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for contributions to Māori and governance.
Lana Bastašić (1986) is a Bosnian and Serbian writer,
novelist and translator.
Lana was born in Zagreb to a Serbian family in 1986 and
immigrated to Banja Luka, Bosnia-Herzegovina as a young child.
She studied English at the University of Banja Luka and
received an MA in Cultural Studies from the University of Belgrade. In addition
to novels, Bastašić has written in many different genres: short stories,
children’s stories, poetry, and stage plays. Her debut novel Catch the Rabbit was
published in Belgrade in 2018, and then reprinted in Sarajevo. The structure of
the book draws inspiration from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with themes of
exile, identity, and is divided into twelve chapters, as is Alice's Adventures
in Wonderland. It won the 2020 EU Prize for Literature and was shortlisted for
the NIN Award.[5] It was translated into English by Bastašić herself and
published by Picador in the UK and Restless Books in the US.
Daan Kolthoff is a writer, living between the hills of Wellington, New Zealand and, when not writing, meditating or walking the hills, he is usually researching, reading about or ordering berets from around the world.