Tag Archives: Old Town
West's mores, China imports challenge the burqa
The homespun Afghan burqa is under siege from east and west these days — cut-price competition from China, and Western influences that are leading many urban women to exchange the full-body cloak for a simple headscarf.
The decline is most noticeable in Kabul, the capital, where women began joining the work force and adopting Western dress soon after the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that ousted the puritanical Taliban. Demand for burqas appears strongest in the provinces, where family pressures and the power of conservative warlords continue to enforce a stricter Islamic code.
Alim Nazery, who has traded in burqas in Kabul for 27 years, remembers selling at least 50 burqas a day when the Taliban were in charge. Now he says he sells 20 a day, mostly to women from the provinces.
On one wall of his store in the Old Town market hang Afghan-made burqas costing from 1,000 to 3,000 Afghanis (about $20-$60), and on the other wall Chinese-made robes for 500-800 Afghanis ($10-$15).
“We are selling more Chinese burqas because they are cheaper and people can buy more of them,” Nazery said, taking a break from haggling with a burqa-clad pregnant woman as her husband waited outside. Another woman emerged from a fitting room screened off by a row of burqas, asking for something with less embroidery.
In the countryside, where kidnapping and rape are a constant threat, a burqa gives its wearer the safety of anonymity.
But in Kabul, say clothiers, demand is declining as young women go to school and take office jobs — pursuits that were impossible during the six years that the Taliban ran the country. But women’s rights activists caution against reading too much into the burqa situation.
They say it’s the least of their problems as they continue to battle such issues as domestic violence and forced marriages.
“The current progress and the current achievements for Afghan women are very cosmetic and anything gained can be lost easily,” said Selay Ghaffar, executive director of the Humanitarian Assistance for Women and Children of Afghanistan (HAWACA), a non-governmental group. She said she herself wears a burqa when traveling in insecure areas.
“Freedom from … the burqa does not mean the real liberalization of women. I should have rights according to the law. I should be
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/lHYziREvb3g/
Is Data The New Tobacco?
By Steven Rosenbaum, Contributor
You’ve got to admit, it was a weird anniversary to celebrate. There was the Mayor of NY at the Old Town Bar in Union Square – happily reminding the bar patrons that ten years ago he had really pissed them off. It was a decade ago that New York enacted the Smoke-Free Air Act. You may remember, at the time bar owners and patrons alike thought the very nature and charm of the neighborhood bar was that grey haze that hung in the air and stuck to your clothes. Back then, Old Town owner Gerard Meagher thought the ban would put him out of business. Today, he was surprised to report that profits are up, food sales are up, and customers are happy. “It turned out to be great, not this bad thing that I thought it would be,” said Meagher. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
Georgia mom says teen told her, 'Do you want me to kill your baby?' before son fatally shot
The mother of a 13-month-old boy who was fatally shot in his stroller during a botched robbery Thursday said one the of suspects threatened to kill her baby moments before the boy was fatally shot.
“He asked me for money and I said I didn’t have it,” Sherry West, the boy’s mom, told The Associated Press Friday from her apartment, which was scattered with her son’s toys and movies. “When you have a baby, you spend all your money on babies. They’re expensive. And he kept asking and I just said `I don’t have it.’ And he said, `Do you want me to kill your baby?’ And I said, `No, don’t kill my baby!”‘
One of the teens allegedly fired four shots, grazing West’s ear and striking her in the leg, before he walked around to the stroller and shot the baby in the face.
A pair of teenagers was arrested Friday in the most recent shooting. West had just been to the post office a few blocks from her apartment Thursday morning and was pushing her son, Antonio, in his stroller while they walked past gnarled oak trees and blooming azaleas in the coastal city of Brunswick.
Seventeen-year-old De’Marquis Elkins is charged as an adult with first-degree murder, along with a 14-year-old who was not identified because he is a juvenile, Police Chief Tobe Green said. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the boys had attorneys.
Police announced the arrest Friday afternoon after combing school records and canvassing neighborhoods searching for the pair. The chief said the motive of the “horrendous act” was still under investigation and the weapon had not been found.
“I feel glad that justice will be served,” West said. “It’s not something I’m going to live with very well. I’m just glad they caught him.”
West said detectives showed her mugshots of about 24 young men. She pointed to one, saying he looked like the gunman.
“After I picked him, they said they had him in custody,” West said. “It looked just like him. So I think we got our man.”
West said she thought the other suspect looked much younger: “That little boy did not look 14.”
The shooting occurred around the corner from West’s apartment in the city’s Old Town historic district. It’s a street lined with grand Victorian homes from the late 1800s. Most have been neatly restored by their owners. Others, with faded and flaking paint, have been divided into rental units like the apartment West shared with her son. The slain boy’s father, Luis Santiago, lives in a house across the street.
A neighbor dropped off a fruit basket and then a hot pot of coffee Friday as a friend from the post office dropped by to comfort West.
Santiago came and went. At one point he scooped up an armload of his son’s stuffed animals, saying he wanted to take them home with him. He talked about Antonio’s first birthday on Feb. 5 and how they had tried different party hats on the boy.
“He’s all right,” Santiago told the boy’s mother, trying …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News
Bus carrying Maine women's basketball team crashes north of Boston
A bus carrying University of Maine women’s basketball players ran off a highway north of Boston on Tuesday night, seriously injuring the driver, who police said may have had a medical episode.
State police said 22 other people on the bus, including students and athletic staff, had only minor injuries.
The driver, whose identity was not immediately released, was taken by helicopter to a Boston hospital.
The bus was southbound on Interstate 95 at about 8:30 p.m. when it crossed the median, went across the northbound lane and down an embankment into woods near Georgetown, a town of about 8,000 residents 30 miles from Boston.
Georgetown Fire Chief Al Beardsley said it was a miracle no other cars were involved.
“This is a very heavily traveled road, day and night, and for a bus that size to basically catapult across the road, I couldn’t imagine being northbound and seeing that thing coming at me,” Beardsley said at the scene.
The University of Maine said Coach Richard Barron was treated for minor facial cuts and three others — players Ashleigh Roberts and Corinne Wellington, and Samantha Wheeler, the team’s director of basketball operations — were taken to a hospital for observation. The team was en route to play Boston University on Wednesday night.
“We’re very thankful that this accident was not any worse than it was,” Robert Dana, vice president for student affairs and dean of students, said in a statement. “The thoughts of the entire University of Maine community are with the bus driver and the team as they contend with this very frightening event.”
Beardsley said authorities are still investigating what caused the driver to veer off the highway, which has four lanes in each direction and a broad median. Police say their preliminary investigation indicates he had a medical issue.
The bus remained upright and appeared to have plowed through a roadside snowbank, knocked down a mile marker, and crashed into woods along the road before coming to rest pointing down an embankment.
“He hit pretty high up on the tree, you can see marks,” Beardsley said.
The bus was owned by the John T. Cyr & Sons Inc. bus line of Old Town, Maine. A man who answered the phone at the company’s office late Tuesday said company officials were gathering information and had notified their insurance carrier.
UMaine Athletic Director Steve Abbott told WHDH-TV in Boston that it was “quite a traumatic ride” and that although passengers were shaken up none were seriously hurt. He said the university has used the bus company extensively and found it to be a “terrific carrier.”
A state police car that stopped at the scene was struck by another car. The trooper who had been driving it was taken to a hospital with what appeared to be minor injuries, police said. Police said the driver of the car was not hurt.
Earlier this month, a bus crash in Boston injured 35 people, including high school students and chaperones, from Pennsylvania. The coach slammed into a 10-foot-high overpass on Feb. 2 while returning to the …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News
Bus crashes north of Boston, driver hurt, police say
A bus carrying University of Maine basketball players crashed on a highway north of Boston on Tuesday night, injuring the driver and several students, state police said.
The driver was seriously injured and was being taken by helicopter to a hospital, police said. Twenty-two students were being evaluated or treated for minor injuries, they said.
The bus was going southbound on Interstate 95 at around 8:30 p.m. when it crossed onto the northbound side and went into a wooded area near Georgetown, a town of about 8,000 residents 30 miles from Boston.
The bus was owned by the John T. Cyr & Sons Inc. bus line of Old Town, Maine. A man who answered the phone at the company’s office late Tuesday said company officials were gathering information about the crash, whose cause hadn’t been determined.
A state police car that stopped at the scene was struck by another car. The trooper who had been driving it was hospitalized with what appeared to be minor injuries, police said.
Earlier this month, a bus crash in Boston injured 35 people, including high school students and chaperones, from Pennsylvania. The coach slammed into a 10-foot-high overpass on Feb. 2 while returning to the Philadelphia area from a trip to Harvard University.
Kickstarter Hit Memoto Gets Ready To Ship Wearable, Life-Recording Cameras
Tucked away in Stockholm’s snow-covered Old Town, about half a dozen engineers with tech startup Memoto are making the final tweaks to the world’s smallest, wearable camera. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest