Thursday, May 14, 2020

Power of the Orishas : Santeria, an Ancient Religion From Nigeria, Is Making Its Presence Felt in Los Angeles

NEAR THE EAST END of the Silver Lake district, at the edge of Echo Park, three little shops--Botanica El Monte, Botanica El Indio and Botanica El Negro Jose--lie within a mile or so of each other. Signs above the doors advertise articulos religiosos , along with flowers, herbs and gifts, and the windows display statues of Jesus, the Virgin Mother and various Catholic saints. A few of these figurines are black, but most have a traditional appearance.
Yet when one enters El Monte, the largest of the botanicas , it is immediately apparent that this is no ordinary religious-goods outlet. Many of the customers are dressed in white, from their hats to their shoes, and they wear beaded bracelets around their wrists. Brightly colored beads and porcelain pots of exotic shapes and patterns are arrayed under glass counters. On the walls behind the counters are charms and shelves of candles inscribed with simple prayers, as well as packets of roots, leaves and other herbal remedies. Incense thickens the air.
In the back of the room, several fierce-looking, near-life-size wooden statues of black men and women sit in a semicircle around a pile of firewood--some holding drums, some with cigars stuck in their mouths, some draped in fine fabric and sporting crowns on their heads, some naked as newborn children.
Meet the black saints. They’ve come to live in the city of angels.
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B OTANICAS ARE MULTIPLYINGin Spanish-speaking neighborhoods throughout the Los Angeles area. There are dozens now, and they exist primarily to serve the followers of Santeria, a religion that shares its roots with voodoo. Several glimpses of the religion’s practices have surfaced in the media in recent months: In a summer thriller called “The Believers,” a Santeria priest performed a ritual animal sacrifice to help protagonist Martin Sheen. Last fall, devotees of the religion protested a Hialeah, Fla., ban on animal sacrifices, labeling the action religious persecution. Southern California’s small but growing Cuban community forms the core of the religion, and there are growing numbers of converts among black Americans and other Caribbean and Latin American nationals. As the Santeria presence grows, say local experts, there is likely to be an increasing amount of cultural conflict here, particularly over the practice of ritual animal sacrifice, which occupies a central place in the religion.
Precise figures on the number of Santeria believers in Southern California are impossible to come by, but estimates by sociologists and from within the religion range from 50,000 to 100,000 and rising. If these numbers, which include both casual and devout believers, are accurate, Los Angeles is now the third-largest center for Santeria in the United States, behind only Miami and New York. Subtle signs of its influence abound. A coconut with shells for eyes displayed in a Cuban restaurant may be more than a decoration: It’s also an image of the Santeria god Elegua. And salsa musicians clad in white and wearing colored beads may be Santeria priests. Salsa rhythms are based on African drumming used in Santeria, and a number of musicians have been drawn to the faith.
Brought from Nigeria to the New World between the 16th and 19th centuries by slaves from the West African Yoruba tribe, Santeria has survived hundreds of years of isolation from Africa with its belief system fundamentally intact. It has done so by secretly identifying Yoruba deities, known as orishas , with Catholic saints who represent similar virtues.
In Haiti, the Yoruba mingled with the Fon people from Dahomey to produce Vodun, or voodoo. In Brazil, Yoruba-based religion is known as Macumba, or Candomble. In Cuba, it is also known as Lucumi, after the Yoruba word for friend.
In Los Angeles, it goes mainly by Santeria, Spanish for “worship of saints.”
The religion of the Yoruba recognizes one supreme being who created the universe, but it holds that God entrusted the orishas with watching over the world. Orishas are similar to the ancient Greek gods in that each represents both a force of nature and a set of human behavorial characteristics, or archetypes. Initiates are baptized under the orisha with whom they have the closest personal affinity, as determined by an elder in a spiritual “reading,” and that orisha becomes the initiate’s guardian angel. Full-fledged priests, known in Santeria as santeros , are said to possess ache , the magical power of the saints.
All the Yoruba-based religions stress respect for ancestors and the use of ritual music, usually drumming, to communicate with the spirit world. Priests toss or roll cowrie shells and use other numerological methods to divine the future, and they make frequent offerings to the gods, including, at times, the sacrifice of live animals. Followers believe that the gods intervene in the day-to-day lives of believers, who might, on occasion, be possessed by the spirit of an orisha.
Over this African foundation have been laid the trappings of Catholicism. To a traditional Santeria believer, St. Peter is really Oggun, the West African patron of metals, miners and working people. The warrior orisha Chango is disguised as St. Barbara, the red-robed patroness of the Spanish artillery. This practice, known as syncretism, long enabled Africans to preserve their religion while appearing to Spanish Catholic priests to be converts.
Father Julian Gonzalez-Montenegro, a Cuban-born Catholic priest who did a routine census for the diocese in the Silver Lake district, noticed Santeria altars and shrines in many of the homes he visited. “Being a Cuban, I can spot it a mile away,” he says. “If you ask them, they’d probably say they’re Catholic. Being a priest, I know better.”
“I think (Santeria) is going to be a very significant institution in this city by the end of the century,” says Donald Cosentino, a lecturer in African folklore and mythology at UCLA. “This is not a cult. This is the local practice of a worldwide religion that has maybe 75 to 100 million followers. The winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, Wole Soyinka of Nigeria, is a believer in the Yoruba gods. Most of his works are about the orishas. It may function like a cult in L.A., but how can you call it a cult if it is the majority religion in Brazil, in Haiti, in Cuba?”
THE FIRST TIME they told me about this religion, I said no way was I ever going to become involved,” Sammy admits. “I’m a college graduate, a scholar. This religion had the stigma of being for ignorant people.”
Ysamur Flores Pena, known to his friends as Sammy, is a santero , a Santeria priest of the orisha Oshun, the goddess of love. He was born and raised in Puerto Rico and moved to Los Angeles five years ago, accepting a job with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in East Los Angeles. When the job ended a year ago, a victim of budget cutbacks, Flores became a full-time priest.
He is 34, although his graying temples make him appear slightly older. He says he has about 40 godchildren--those he has initiated into the religion and who look up to him as a father figure--in Los Angeles, and another 80 or so in Venezuela, Puerto Rico and Miami. Many of his local godchildren are English-speaking black Americans, and some are Vietnamese. He says his is not a large “house,” or “family,” by Santeria standards.
Flores was born into a prominent family and has a master’s degree in education from Catholic University in Puerto Rico. He speaks English gracefully, with an almost musical accent, and prides himself on his scholarship about the history and teachings of Santeria, ably comparing it with Eastern religions, or Jungian psychology.
When Flores was about 17, he hurt his back. Out of curiosity as much as anything else, he paid a visit to a santero. The man did a reading, which consists of throwing 16 cowrie shells on a tray and interpreting the numerical patterns of how many land face up or face down. The patterns are believed to reveal the orisha’s divine answers to specific human questions. “He told me all about myself, and he had never met me before,” says Flores. “I decided there might be more to this than meets the eye.”
On the advice of the santero , Flores began to make regular offerings of fruits, other foods and occasionally live animals to the orishas , while continuing to receive orthodox medical treatments, including two operations. His back improved. “I became a fencing champion,” he says. “The doctors still don’t know how I did it.”
Many Santeria believers tell similar stories. They had a problem with their health, or love life, or job, or family. A friend or family member referred them to a santero for a reading. They went, followed his or her advice by praying and making offerings to the orishas and ancestors, and decided that it worked to solve their problems. Some joined the santero’s “family” by becoming initiated into the religion. Eventually, a few were “called” to become priests.
Like most priests, Flores earns a living by performing consecrations and ceremonies, and he accepts gifts from his godchildren, though he declines to reveal specific amounts. He admits that he is two months behind on his car payments as we speak, but his godchildren are able to raise enough money to periodically send him to Miami, Venezuela and Puerto Rico. He has recently opened his own botanica , Turey Spiritual Shop.
“We don’t advertise,” says Flores, “and we don’t look for converts. People come to us. We have prostitutes in this religion, homosexuals, lesbians. We accept them. This is a positive, problem-solving religion.
“When we cleanse a person of any kind of negative stuff (by pouring blood over them in a blood sacrifice), we are trying to bring that person into harmony with his or her guardian angel. Everyone has a guardian angel watching over them, even if they don’t know it. We believe the planet itself is an orisha. That’s the beauty of this religion. Once you discover it and practice it the right way, there is a sense of harmony with the universe that you get by the sheer act of talking about it, working with the orishas , doing ceremonies. You feel that energy flowing through you.”
SANTERIA HAS no hierarchal structure comparable to Catholicism. There’s no Pope, no bishops, no Vatican doctrine. In Nigeria, where the traditional religion is practiced alongside Christianity and Islam, there are public temples for worshiping the various orishas , without the pretense of syncretism. In the New World, priests, the santeros , usually operate out of their own homes, or in the back rooms of the botanicas. Last June, a santero attempted to launch an above-ground church in the Miami suburb of Hialeah. The church met with opposition not only from neighborhood residents and local politicians who objected to the animal sacrifices, but also from other santeros concerned about the public display of traditionally secret ceremonies. Santeros (or santeras ; women can become priests equal to men) serve as a combination of minister, theologian, psychiatrist and witch doctor. They must be familiar with the traditional Yoruba prayers, chants and ceremonies handed down from the days of slavery. They may also be skilled herbalists and musicians.
Not unlike Western physicians, they must possess a certain opportunistic entrepreneurial spirit, for the role of santero is a full-time job. Each ceremony and ritual has its price, although the rates can vary widely depending on the wealth of the client. The initiation of a santero can cost up to $10,000. It’s not unheard of for an affluent Cuban businessman to spend thousands of dollars to obtain the protection of the saints on a big business deal. Nor is it unusual for a santero to perform expensive ceremonies free, especially on behalf of those he has initiated into the religion. A santero might have hundreds or even thousands of such godchildren supporting him with gifts and donations in exchange for his services. Extortion--the threat of turning the gods against believers unless they pay the santero more money--would seem to be an obvious possibility. However, reported cases are rare.
According to Teresita Pedraza, a Cuban-born sociologist who teaches at Miami-Dade Community College, most santeros have two distinct followings; those who view them as religious leaders and those who come to them for magic and divination only in times of crisis.
“Be objective,” says Pedraza. “If Santeria wasn’t providing some kind of service to these people, it would have disappeared long ago. The key element is that a santero listens to you. Your problem becomes his problem. You immediately acquire an extended family, a network of support. In the house of santeros , there is always food, and he may be able to help you find a job, or get you off drugs. It becomes a personal challenge for the santero to help you.”
Pedraza sees Santeria as the response of displaced and dispossessed people to extreme social circumstances. “You have to place yourself into the daily life of those practicing the religion,” she says. “Perceive a world that has been largely hostile to them. Even Cubans who have been financially successful have suffered through a severe social dislocation. Although Cuba has never been more than nominally Catholic, many Cubans turned to the church after the revolution, praying for a miracle. The miracle never happened. So they turned to other, perhaps more powerful, solutions.” Although she is not a devotee herself, Pedraza believes the religion has a positive effect on the lives of most of its followers. For three years, she has lectured the Miami police to help them understand the phenomenon of Santeria. “I tell them the more you know, the less you will fear it. There has been a high degree of exploitation by the media, and a great deal of ethnic prejudice.”
Much of that prejudice concerns the religion’s use of rituals that involve animal sacrifices. The rituals are not performed randomly but for specific religious purposes, and in most cases, the sacrificed animals--usually chickens, which can be purchased legally and inexpensively--are promptly eaten. “It’s very similar to a Catholic Mass,” Cosentino says. “There is a transfer of body and blood, which you offer up to the Father, and then consume it yourself. Catholicism holds that the Crucifixion was the ultimate sacrifice, and no other could measure up. Santeria is more like the Old Testament, in that they continue to make blood sacrifices.” The ceremonies are effective, he adds. “It isn’t a bag of tricks--it’s real. The rituals really work. They wouldn’t be practiced if they didn’t.”
One local initiate describes a backyard ritual in which some hens were sacrificed to feed the Eggun , or ancestor spirits. “We dug a hole and put some molasses and peas and other stuff in it. Then we took one of the hens. At first the hen was real nervous. Then we started saying prayers over it and it was weird--the hen got really calm. The priest held the hen in one hand and twisted the neck off with the other. The head popped off, just like that. Then he held the body upside down and poured the blood in the hole. Blood sacrifice is thought to be the most potent, because it is the essential life fluid.
“Human blood is never required.”
B EMBES ARE where everyone gets together to see and be seen,” says Flores. “It’s like a party for the priests. The orishas love to come down and party.”
We are sitting in bright weekend sunlight on the patio of a house off Alvarado, in Echo Park. From inside, one can hear the insistent beat of the bata drummers. In a California culture clash, the ancient drums compete for dominance on the patio with heavy-metal guitar emanating from the house two doors up, where teen-agers are drinking beer and throwing the cans out in the yard. “The advantage of L.A. is that the religion is growing here,” Flores continues, as two laughing men walk past carrying the cooked head of a sacrificed pig. “We have tried to learn from the mistakes in other cities. We want to obey the law and avoid scandals. The community is still small enough that many of the priests know each other. If somebody is a phony, word gets around quick.”
The front room of the house has been emptied of furniture. In a side room, four or five new priests wait with an elaborate altar and offerings of fruit and various other foods. There is no alcohol anywhere, and no sign of drug use--just cigars, whose smoke is thought to attract orishas and ancestor spirits. Nearly everyone present is Cuban. Many are wearing white in combination with the special colors of their orisha. Their beaded necklaces, known as elekes , indicate which orisha they’ve been consecrated under--red and white for Chango, the patron of fire, thunder and lightning; yellow for Oshun, patron of love and financial success, and so on.
The drummers have begun saluting 16 of the orishas in the expansive Yoruba pantheon actively worshiped in Santeria. Each orisha has a rhythm and chant preserved from antiquity. The bata drums are held on the laps of the players, who play both ends with their hands and fingertips. The sound is earthier than that of the fiberglass conga drums usually used in Latin-jazz and rock groups, and the polyrhythms are more purely African.
In the front room, people are dancing and clapping to the drums. There are polite, middle-aged women in expensive dresses and high heels; professional-looking, gray-haired men you might pass on the golf course and not glance at twice; all swaying and moving together in distinctly African formations. A tall, seemingly tireless black man leads the chants. He sings a line, and the others answer in unison. All the singing is in Yoruba, which functions as a sacred language in Santeria much as Latin does in the Catholic Church.
It’s time to introduce the new priests and priestesses to the orisha of the bata , Ania. The first is a slight, bespectacled man wearing a white skullcap and holding two coconuts on a plate. He is flanked by two other priests, one male, one female. Walking very slowly, but in rhythm, they bring him before the middle drum and lay him flat on the ground, where he leaves the coconuts. Then they help him up and dance a slow retreat. Again and again, they advance and retreat before the bata. The intensity of the drumming gradually increases, until the three are bent over at the waist, eyes closed, still stepping forward and backward in unison yet individually enveloped in the music.
Suddenly, the drummers double the tempo into a furious polyrhythm. The other two grab the new priest and begin running him in a circle. His neck jerks back and his legs go limp, as if he’s been struck by lightning. He’s been possessed. His whole body is shaking wildly. The others hold him up and guide him into the kitchen in the back of the house, where, for better or worse, in a trance he assumes the personality of his orisha for a time.
“It’s always Pentecost in this religion,” Cosentino says. “Possession opens the pathway to another plane, and serves as a source of prophecy. Something is always being revealed about the nature of the gods not known before.” The orishas are like people. They don’t like to be ignored.”
I HAVE BEEN possessed by Oshun,” says Monife Balewa, “and I’ve prayed that it not happen again. It’s usually the drum that brings it on. The last time, I don’t remember what happened, but I’ve been told I jumped out a second-story window. I lost a $250 watch, and made a statement that a person would die because of disrespect. Oshun can be very stern and correct. A week later, that person died.
“You usually know when it’s coming on. I think you can back away from it.”
Like Flores, Balewa is an initiate of Oshun. Unlike Flores, she was born in the United States. A black woman in her 40s who dresses in African fabrics, she grew up Catholic in the Bronx and was initiated into the religion there by Puerto Ricans 11 years ago. She claims to be the highest-ranking black priestess on the West Coast, though in the absence of a central authority, such claims are open to dispute.
Balewa works out of the Yoruba Temple, located in a decrepit-looking building near the corner of Vermont Avenue and 42nd Street. The Yoruba Temple was founded about three years ago by Sekou Ali and Imodoye Shabazz, former Black Muslims who discovered in the religion a missing link to understanding their African heritage. The temple offers evening classes in dancing and drumming, as well as weekend worship services, daily family counseling and Balewa’s “spiritual readings done the African way,” with the cowrie shells. There is no charge for any of the services.
“Our purpose is to have a focal point in the community, to teach the culture, as well as the ceremonies,” says Ali, a stocky man with a shaved head who works at an oil refinery during the week. “Our purpose is not to have blood splattered all over the walls. You can see that people are not slaughtering children, or slaughtering animals, in here. We put more emphasis on character-building, on doing positive things in this world. In Nigeria, this is not just a religion, it’s a way of life.” LOCAL BELIEVERS have been bothered by Miami police reports linking Santeria to cocaine trafficking among the Marielitos, some of whom had criminal backgrounds in Cuba before coming to the U.S. in the 1980 Mariel boat lift. According to sources in the religion, a drug dealer might go to a santero for advice on the safest time to make a shipment and to ask for the orishas’ protection .
Detective Supervisor Patrick Metoyer, coordinator of the Criminal Conspiracy Section of the LAPD, is the department’s recognized expert on the occult, training members of the force to notice and respect such things as the sacred items of non-Western religions. He says the police come across “a lot of altars to the saints,” which they recognize as Santeria shrines, in East L.A. drug houses. He is careful to emphasize that the LAPD does not monitor santeros , any more than it does practitioners of other religions. In fact, says Metoyer--who identifies himself as a devout Catholic--he knows “persons who are police officers in Miami, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles who practice some form of Santeria.”
“Does this make them bad cops?” he asks. “No. The way they explain it is, if there is something they can do to give us an edge, why not?” While she asserts that most santeros are law-abiding, middle-class citizens, sociologist Pedraza concedes that “a small number of santeros cater to the drug business. Whether they were already in it when they started, or they found it on their doorsteps, I don’t know. But these are the ones that make the news.”
“It hurts me,” says Flores of the connection between Santeria and cocaine, “because I am so in love with this religion. The last time I was in Miami, I met a woman who saw my bracelet and asked me what it meant. I told her I was a santero, a priest. She said, ‘Oh yeah, you’re the religion that protects cocaine smugglers.’ Man, I have never felt so low in my life. I have never used drugs. I almost never even drink. You’re supposed to keep the top of your head clear for the orishas.
“There is something going on in the religion, but it can only go on so long before it catches up to them. It doesn’t matter how many orishas you have around you, you can’t go above God’s command. In other religions, you are forgiven. In this religion, you are punished. I’m afraid of what would happen if I messed up. A mistake can kill you.”
“Let me show you something,” Flores says softly. He opens a leather pouch and pulls out a polished, hollowed goat’s horn with a beaded cowrie shell lodged in it. “As long as I have this, I’m protected. This place could burn down and you and I would walk out of here without a scratch.
“But if I start messing up, that protection gradually will be withdrawn. If someone tries to mess with me, I don’t have to cast spells and stuff like that. I just have to stand in front of my orishas and tell them. If I’m innocent, somebody’s gonna get it. But if I’m guilty, I’m gonna get it.”
With that, he sprinkles a few drops of his drink on the floor for the ancestors.
FOOTBALL/SOCCER

Jamal Khashoggi's fiancée urges Newcastle fans to oppose takeover

Hatice Cengiz, fiancée of murdered journalist, writes open letter

‘Slam shut the door on this offensive deal’



Louise Taylor THE GUARDIAN Wed 13 May 2020
Hatice Cengiz said she understood Newcastle fans’ desire for new owners but said the Saudi-backed takeover was not in the club’s best interests. 
Photograph: Katie Jones/Variety/Shutterstock


Hatice Cengiz, the fiancée of the murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi, has implored Newcastle United supporters to mobilise against the prospective Saudi Arabia-funded takeover of the club.

Mike Ashley, Newcastle’s owner, has agreed a £300m deal with a consortium comprising the financier Amanda Staveley, the property company Reuben Brothers and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. The plan is for PIF to assume an 80% stake and, with the deal in its fifth week of scrutiny by the Premier League, completion could be close.

Although the vexed issue of the kingdom’s human rights record is beyond the parameters of the Premier League’s owners’ and directors’ test, the governing body is examining allegations of broadcast piracy against Saudi Arabia. Newcastle’s prospective Saudi majority owners have denied any link to the BeoutQ piracy.

Khashoggi fiancee: stop Saudi takeover of Newcastle United or be complicit
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/apr/28/khashoggi-fiancee-stop-saudi-takeover-of-newcastle-or-be-complicit
Read more

Cengiz, whose fiancé was killed inside Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Istanbul in 2018, believes that remit should be extended to the country’s human rights abuses, already highlighted by Amnesty International. Newcastle fans have no direct power to veto the buyout but she hopes they will demand the Premier League block a deal many regard as a blatant attempt to “sportswash” Saudi’s international image.

“I write to you at a crucial time in the history of your famous club,” wrote Cengiz in an open letter to Newcastle fans. “Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the absolute ruler of Saudi Arabia, is aiming to take over your club by offering a huge sum of money.

“I know that many of you are tempted by his offer to get out of the dire situation that has crippled your club for so many years. But the Crown Prince is accused of ordering Jamal’s murder. My plea to you is to think whether accepting [the] offer is really the right way out of the despair for your club.

“You as the loyal fans do have a big say in this. I implore you all to unite to protect your beloved club and city. They are making this move not with your best interests in mind, but solely to serve themselves. Their hearts will not genuinely be in the club that means everything to you. Now is the moment to stand tall together for the game, your club, your city and your country in order to slam shut the door on this offensive deal.”
Hatice Cengiz / خديجة(@mercan_resifi)

An open letter to the Fans of Newcastle United Football Club: I implore you all to unite to protect your beloved club and city from Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and those around him. Stop this takeover before it’s too late. #NUFC #nufctakover pic.twitter.com/kTk2bf3oEvMay 13, 2020


Saudi Arabia has described Khashoggi’s murder as a rogue operation of which the heir to the throne knew nothing. An investigation by Agnès Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, found that Saudi Arabia was responsible under human rights law for the murder and that it was “inconceivable” the operation that resulted in his death could not have been implemented without Bin Salman being aware a criminal mission was being launched against the journalist.

Despite the late emergence of new documents related to alleged broadcast piracy, sources close to the takeover remain optimistic an agreement broadly welcomed by Newcastle fans will be approved in the near future. They maintain “no red flags” have been raised and that the delay has been partly prompted by the Premier League’s necessary preoccupation with Project Restart.

Meanwhile Ashley, who has received a £17m non-refundable deposit, is understood to be eager to see the balance paid in order to help address coronavirus-induced cashflow problems in his high street retail empire.

The Newcastle midfielder Jonjo Shelvey has revealed Steve Bruce’s players remain in the dark about the takeover. “We’re the same as the fans,” said Shelvey. “We don’t know what’s going on.” Although Shelvey said Ashley had “always been good to me”, the former England international would welcome a buyout. “I think it would be good for the fans, the club and the city.”

It is understood Newcastle have removed some employees from the government’s furlough scheme as active staffing levels rise ahead of the squad’s return to training next week.
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SPORTS

Can millionaire college coaches defend their salaries during Covid-19?

As the pandemic hits the revenue of universities across America, some are wondering whether seven-figure coaching salaries can be justified


Mary Pilon THE GUARDIAN Wed 13 May 2020
 
Dabo Swinney earns nearly $10m a year in his role as Clemson head coach.
 Photograph: Jeff Blake/USA Today Sports


After Iowa State saw its Big-12 and NCAA basketball tournaments cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, the school was among those immediately facing a financial suckerpunch – a $5m shortfall in its budget.

Yet the crisis was solved swiftly and in a way that would have been unthinkable just a few months ago. Jamie Pollard, the school’s athletic director, and the school’s football coach, Matt Campbell, immediately agreed to a reduction of their salaries, while there were other pay cuts across the department, creating a stopgap for the entire shortfall. For Campbell, a cut to his reported $3.5m salary would hardly mean a lean paycheck for a man who, even with the drop, is among the highest-paid employees in the state.

For decades, college sports have been in a Gilded Age. Salaries for men’s basketball and football coaches and support staff have soared with dozens of college coaches in America making millions annually, be they at private or public universities. College coaches are the highest-paid state employees in 39 of 50 states, according to analysis from ESPN, and some of them aren’t even currently coaching at those schools anymore. Many benefit from private jets, housing stipends and generous severance packages. Wake Forest reportedly paid $15m last month just to get rid of its men’s basketball coach, Danny Manning.

College athletes, meanwhile, are not paid a salary, per rules from the NCAA, the organization that governs college sports in the United States.

As Covid-19 spreads, ravaging American health, the economy, and hopes for a fall football season, critical minds are turning to millionaire college coaches and handsomely-paid athletic department staff. It marks a reversal of decades of growth in long-sacred paydays in college sports. Moreover, the income inequalities of college sports are laid bare.

These coaching pay cuts “are completely appropriate,” Andrew Zimbalist, an economist at Smith College, says. “In fact, I think 90% pay cuts would also be appropriate.”

At the University of Louisville, which faced a $15m shortfall, coaches and senior athletic department staff took a 10% pay cut, according to a spokesman, including a reduction of football coach Scott Satterfield’s $3.25m salary. Boise State University implemented furloughs across its university, including its athletic department, with those earning over $150,000 taking a larger reduction. At the University of Wyoming, athletic director Tom Burman volunteered to take a 10% salary reduction through 31 December and said he planned to donate more to the Cowboy Joe Club, a fund for athletic scholarships.


“Not only are we impacted by the recession tied to Covid-19, but our state is extremely reliant on energy. And energy – coal, gas and oil – all are experiencing historic challenges,” Burman said in a statement. “I feel as a leader, who is compensated above the average person in the state, I need to lead by example. We will get through this but only if we work together and care about our neighbors.”

Even the NCAA’s president Mark Emmert, a longtime focal point for criticism in the lopsided economics of college sports, announced that he would take a 20% pay cut of his $2.1m salary.

Notable are the coaches who have not taken a pay cut, or at least announced one publicly. None of the three highest-paid coaches – Clemson’s Dabo Swinney ($9.3m a year), the University of Alabama’s Nick Saban ($8.85m) and Jim Harbaugh at the University of Michigan ($7.5m) – have announced pay cuts.

A spokesman for Clemson confirmed that Swinney has not taken a pay cut. A spokesperson from Alabama did not return requests for comment. A spokesman for the University of Michigan confirmed that although the school’s athletic director Warde Manuel is taking a 5% pay cut, “no athletic department staff member has been asked to consider reductions in their salary.”

The end of generations of exploitation by the NCAA is finally in sight
Etan Thomas
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/nov/05/the-end-of-generations-of-exploitation-by-the-ncaa-is-finally-in-sight

In better times, when revenue from ticket sales, massive TV contracts and checks from boosters rolled in, schools often defended the large salaries of coaches by arguing that they brought in winning records, a sense of pride, and money to schools.

Critics have argued that those programs were also costly to run and that college coach pay exists in an “artificial marketplace,” Zimbalist says. It’s artificial in that athletes aren’t paid, athletic departments don’t have stockholders, and they may receive taxpayer subsidies for everything from stadium construction to their own salaries, he adds. “What they have are stakeholders and these are boosters and alums and students and administrators who want to see the team win. A normal business operates to generate a profit and therefore they’re acutely cost conscious. This business operates with very little regard to cost because they’re all about winning.”


Zimbalist also serves on the board of directors of the Drake Group, an influential group of academics who have researched the role of college athletics. The group is calling for salary freezes for coaches, as well as a suspension of bonuses. Pointing to Iowa State’s decisions as an example, the group said in a statement, “this is the right thing to do.”

Internally, there is a consensus that pay cuts are in the crosshairs, even if many prominent coaches or schools have yet to step forward. An April survey of athletic directors nationwide conducted by LEAD1, an organization of athletic department executives, found that 67% of athletic directors “agree or strongly agree” with limiting current compensation. (An anonymous quote from one of the survey respondents said, “everyone loves socialism on college campuses but in athletic departments it is straight capitalism.”) More than half of those surveyed said that their departments did not “have a financial reserve that could aid in this type of crisis.”

The economics of college sports are often more complicated than in professional leagues. For example, revenue from big ticket programs such as football or basketball may help fund smaller college sports. That means if income from football or basketball falls, depending on the school, it may jeopardize sports such as rowing, wrestling or field hockey. What’s more, many college sports rely on student fees, which could crater this coming academic year amid the pandemic. While TV deals funnel millions into college athletic coffers, so, too, do ticket sales and in a early-April poll from Seton Hall, nearly three out of four fans said they wouldn’t return to live sports events without a vaccine.

Just as many institutions, once slow to change, have now had to rapidly revamp due to Covid-19, critics argue that the pandemic may expedite a reckoning that had been long underway. Before the coronavirus hit, Democratic congresswoman Donna Shalala introduced federal legislation that would limit high college coach salaries. And, after years of fighting in and out of courtrooms, the NCAA may finally be budging on whether athletes can profit off of the use of their likenesses.


The pandemic has also brought to light the lack of union representation college players have, compared with their counterparts in the MLB, NFL, NHL, WNBA and NBA. Not only can college athletes not collectively negotiate with schools for terms to return to stadiums, but schools may face massive liabilities in putting students on the field prematurely, officials said. The general thinking is that unless students are back on campuses, it will be hard to have them back on the playing field.

The pay cut is a luxury the players don’t have because they don’t make a salary anyway. “Perhaps this is an opportunity for some necessary cultural change for how we think about student athletes,” Jasmine Harris, a sociology professor at Ursinus College who has studied student athletes, says.

“Especially in men’s basketball and football, the discussion [about money] is always bound in family,” Harris adds. “‘We all belong to the same banner and so we are taking care of each other.’ That kind of rhetoric has been used for the last 20 years or so as one of the many reasons people give for not paying the student athletes, that it takes away from that idea that we’re here as comrades and as peers and as potential future alumni. ‘We’re rallying together around that.’ Well, where’s the rallying together when the university has lost $35m in eight weeks? Especially if you’re one of those coaches in that greater-than-$5m salary range who has been making that amount of money for a significant amount of time?”

The current questioning of coaches’ financial value may also bring a reckoning for other athletic expenditures, Fritz G Polite, assistant vice president of opportunity development at the Harry F Byrd, Jr School of Business at Shenandoah University, says. The arms race of gleaming stadiums and athletic facilities, as well as adjacent coaching staffs may be cut, as well.

And in a best case scenario, it may put more of the “college” back into college sports, Polite says.


“I think that people get caught up in the Kool Aid,” Polite says. “The true essence of higher education really should be about the academic enterprise. The athletic enterprise has co-opted the academic side.”

Polite cites the coming together of the NBA and the NFL to raise funds for Covid-19 causes, even as their seasons seem to be on pause, as a model for college coaches going forward.

“I’d like to see the athletic directors and coaches come together to create a unified movement to support the millions of people who are currently unemployed,” Polite says. “And support this country that’s in a dire time of need right now ... I’d like to see these coaches say, ‘We get it, and we’d like to make a donation and we’re going to raise $50m and give it to the food banks of America.’ That’s what I would like to see, some social responsibility from these multi-million dollar coaches and athletic directors.”
Brazil legends rebuke Jair Bolsonaro for 'irresponsible' Covid-19 policy


Raí and Mauro Silva won the World Cup together in 1994. Now they are standing together to oppose the country’s president
By Tom Sanderson for Yellow & Green Football


Tom Sanderson
THE GUARDIAN
Wed 13 May 2020

 
São Paulo general manager Raí says Brazil president Jair Bolsonaro should resign. Composite: Getty Images


The coronavirus outbreak has yet not reached its peak in Brazil, but firebrand president Jair Bolsonaro – who caused outrage last month when he responded to news of increasing death tolls by saying “So what?” – is already attempting to rush the country’s footballers back to the field. “There are a lot of people in football who are favourable to a return because unemployment is knocking on clubs’ doors,” said Bolsonaro. “Footballers, if infected with the virus, have an infinitely small chance of dying. That’s because of their physical state, because they are athletes.”

Bolsonaro has been continually blasé about coronavirus, calling it a “little cold” exaggerated by media “hysteria”. During a failed attempt to get Brazilians to resume everyday life in late April, he told the nation that only old people are at risk. Bolsonaro is 65 years old but does not include himself in that group as he says he has the “history of an athlete”.

This bold claim opened him up to ridicule and prompted the resurfacing of a video taken last year in which Bolsonaro, a former military man who feeds off a supposed macho image, struggles comically through a set of press-ups. The video is particularly galling for Bolsonaro as it shows João Doria, the São Paulo state governor, performing the press-ups alongside him with ease. Doria was a Bolsonara ally during the campaign trail in 2018, but he is now a sworn enemy given his stricter views on lockdown restrictions.

air Bolsonaro says footballers in Brazil have ‘a small chance of dying’ from Covid-19

Bolsonaro is powerless to override the authority of individual states when it comes to isolation and, by sticking his nose in footballing matters, he has irked the director of football at one of Brazil’s biggest clubs. Raí, the legendary World Cup-winning midfielder who played for PSG in the 1990s and now runs São Paulo FC, criticised Bolsonaro for being “irresponsible” and flouting WHO guidelines. In a video interview with Globoesporte, Raí called for Bolsonaro’s resignation and blamed him for instigating “political crises” in the middle of a pandemic.

Bolsonaro has his supporters within the game. Caio Ribeiro, a former São Paulo and Brazil player who now works as a commentator, defended the president, saying he “didn’t like Raí’s speech” because he spoke “very little about sports and talked a lot about politics”. “He has to talk about sports,” said Ribeiro. “When he talks about resignation, public hospitals and all that, it seems to me that he has political connotations in relation to his preferences.”

Ribeiro’s suggestion that footballers and should stick to their primary field of expertise and not be outspoken on political matters sparked a debate, with Walter Casagrande – a highly respected pundit who played alongside Sócrates, Raí’s elder brother – defending the São Paulo director. “I think the exact same as Raí,” said Casagrande in an impassioned Instagram post. “I’m against the return of football at this moment. Every day the death toll rises in the country. It’s absurd to think about this.


“In a democracy, everyone can and should express their opinions, about every subject, independent of their profession. Nobody can wish to censor the speech of others and determine which subject they can talk about. Ultimately, Raí represented his brother Sócrates with pride and I have no doubt that he would say the same thing. People in football are pressed a lot for their lack of participation and opinion. Raí is one of the few who has taken a position. Congratulations, Raí!”


Luiz Felipe Scolari: 'Everything I did as a manager, I learned as a teacher'
Read more

Casagrande added that Raí would be a “a great companion in Democracia Corinthiana” – the movement led by his brother Sócrates in the mid-1980s that challenged the military dictatorship to which Bolsonaro and his supporters long to return.

Speaking exclusively to Yellow and Green Football, Raí responded to Ribeiro by saying: “Before anything in life, we are citizens. I am radically in favour of the free manifestation of ideas. Although I am not a controversial person, I am attentive to politics and social reality. When I perceive great injustices, ideological absurdities, or actions that can massacre the unfortunate [in society], indignation takes over and I manifest myself more strongly.”

Raí says he “doesn’t care” about the abuse he has received from Bolsonaro’s supporters and that he has “ignored them and the smell of their bigotry”. Regarding how his brother would feel about Bolsonaro’s behaviour and intentions, he agrees with Casagrande, saying Sócrates would “surely also be outraged and revolt – imagine Dr Sócrates! The way he would react!” Raí insists he will only consider allowing his club’s players to return to the pitch once the “health and sanitary authorities – the governor, mayor and secretary of health – have authorised it, preferably when the curve of deaths and number of infected citizens has been reversed”.

The Brazil team that won the World Cup in 1994, including Rai and Mauro Silva. Photograph: Colorsport/Rex/Shutterstock


Mauro Silva, who won the World Cup alongside Raí in 1994 and is now vice-president of the São Paulo state football federation, is backing his old teammate. Silva says the federation has decided “unanimously” that football should only return once the state authorities allow it. “The supreme federal court decided that states and municipalities have the autonomy to define isolation measures. So this is how we at the federation are working,” he said. He also offered his own personal support for Raí, saying: “Everyone has the right to speak out on whatever they want.”

Bruno Guimarães was ready to quit football. Now he is a Brazil player

Yet the government ploughs on with its hard-headed approach. The ministry of health – which is now being fronted by Nelson Teich after Luiz Henrique Mandetta was fired for opposing Bolsonaro’s lax views on coronavirus – sent a report to Brazil’s football federation in which they effectively concluded that football was too important to stay closed down. The ministry said they were “favourable” to a return as because they recognised that “football is a relevant sporting activity in the Brazilian context and that its resumption may contribute to measures to reduce social displacement through the transmission of games.”

Yet many in the game have reasons to disagree. Thirty-eight employees, including three players, have tested positive for coronavirus at the Série A champions Flamengo. Just like Brazil’s battle with the disease, the row between its leaders and those in the game has not yet reached its peak.
World nuclear arms spending hit $73bn last year – half of it by US

Spending by nine nuclear-armed states rose 10%

Trump boosted nuclear funding but cut pandemic prevention

Julian Borger in Washington THE GUARDIAN Wed 13 May 2020
 
An unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile is launched during a test on 5 February 2020, at Vandenberg air force base, California. Photograph: Clayton Wear/US Air Force/AFP via Getty Images
The world’s nuclear-armed nations spent a record $73bn on their weapons last year, with the US spending almost as much as the eight other states combined, according to a new report.

The new spending figures, reflecting the highest expenditure on nuclear arms since the height of the cold war, have been estimated by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Ican), which argues that the coronavirus pandemic underlines the wastefulness of the nuclear arms race.

The nine nuclear weapons states spent a total of $72.9bn in 2019, a 10% increase on the year before. Of that, $35.4bn was spent by the Trump administration, which accelerated the modernisation of the US arsenal in its first three years while cutting expenditure on pandemic prevention.

“It’s clear now more than ever that nuclear weapons do not provide security for the world in the midst of a global pandemic, and not even for the nine countries that have nuclear weapons, particularly when there are documented deficits of healthcare supplies and exhausted medical professionals,” Alicia Sanders-Zakre, the lead author of the report, said.

The report comes at a time when arms control is at a low ebb, with the last major treaty limiting US and Russian strategic nuclear weapons, New Start, due to expire in nine months with no agreement so far to extend it.

Russia, which has announced the development of an array of new weapons – including nuclear-powered, long-distance cruise missiles, underwater long-distance nuclear torpedoes and a new heavy intercontinental ballistic missile – spent $8.5bn on its arsenal in 2019, according to Ican’s estimates. China, which has a much smaller nuclear force than the US and Russia but is seeking to expand, spent $10.4bn.

Those expenditures were far overshadowed by the US nuclear weapons budget, which is part of a major upgrade also involving new weapons, including a low-yield submarine-launched missile, which has already been deployed.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the cost of the US programme over the coming decade will be $500bn, an increase of nearly $100bn, about 23%, over projections from the end of the Obama administration.

Congressional Democrats failed in an attempt to curb the administration’s nuclear ambitions, but Kingston Reif, the director for disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association, said budgetary constraints in a coronavirus-induced recession, could succeed where political opposition failed.

“There’s going to be significant pressure on federal spending moving forward, including defense spending,” Reif said. “So, the cost and opportunity cost of maintaining and modernizing the arsenal, which were already punishing, will become even more so.”

AMERICA RUNS ON A PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY



OBJECTS AND IMMORTALS: THE LIFE OF OBI IN IFA-ORIṢHA RELIGION

A dissertation presented
by
Funlayo Easter Wood
to
The Department of African and African American Studies
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in the subject of
African and African American Studies
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
April 2017
https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/41140237/WOOD-DISSERTATION-2017.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

ABSTRACT

The kola nut is a ubiquitous presence in Yoruba culture. Whether being presented by
the basketful to a potential bride's family, shared as a snack amongst friends, or offered to
the spirits, obi—as it is called in Yoruba language—serves at once as food, medicine, and
currency. As an object, obi bridges relational chasms, helping to forge and strengthen bonds
amongst human beings; at the same time, obi is regarded as one of the original immaterial
and immortal divinities in the universe, known in Yoruba as irunmole. It is this bipartite
nature that renders obi a centrifugal force around which much Ifa-Oriṣa practice revolves; so
important are its duties that no ritual can proceed without obi's presence or the presence of a
suitable substitute to stand in its stead.
This dissertation will interrogate the uses and meanings—the “life”—of obi in IfaOriṣa religion. It will examine obi’s physical and spiritual origins, the duties it fulfills while
on earth— including its role as the most frequently used divination medium in Ifa-Oriṣa
practice—and the ways in which it dies or sheds its material body and returns to its
immaterial, immortal form as an irunmole. Through excavation of ritual, material culture
items, sacred narratives, proverbs, divination orature, and personal narratives, the
dissertation will describe and analyze the ways in which characterizations of and
interactions with obi reflect important religio-philosophical perspectives, particularly those
of an ontological, epistemological, ethical, and existential nature. Using obi as a conduit,
and employing theories and methods from within religious studies, comparative religion, 
iv
Africana philosophy, philosophy of religion, theology, anthropology of religion, semiotics,
and philosophy of science, the dissertation will argue for the importance of kinesthetic and
aural ways of knowing in the formation of the Ifa-Oriṣa world-sense. While these ways of
knowing are often subordinated to the visual and oral, I will argue that adequate engagement
with movement and audition are of paramount importance to the understanding of Ifa-Oriṣa
and, by extension, other cosmologically similar African and Diasporic religions. 
Ethnologies
Santería Enthroned: Art, Ritual, and Innovation in an
Afro-Cuban Religion. By David H. Brown. (Chicago, University
of Chicago Press, 2003. Pp. 413, illustrations, photos, plates,
notes, appendices, bibliography, index, ISBN 0226076105)
Michael Marcuzzi
Passages
Volume 31, Number 1, 2009
URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/038516ar
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/038516ar
See table of contents
Publisher(s)
Association Canadienne d'Ethnologie et de Folklore
https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/ethno/2009-v31-n1-ethno3558/038516ar/

SERPENTWITHFEET 


Oshun is the Yorùbá Orisha (Deity) of the sweet or fresh waters (as opposed to the salt waters of Yemaya). She is widely loved, as She is known for healing the ...

Jul 9, 2019 - Yemaya is perhaps the most nurturing of all the Orishas, and it's believed that all of life comes from her deep nourishing waters. Her strong and ...

Apr 20, 2018 - We're said to share personality traits with our Orisha, who ultimately helps us ... and all the qualities associated with fresh, flowing river water.
Yemaya is the Yoruba (West African) goddess of water and life. In the Yoruba religion, Yemaya is an orisha, an animistic deity who is a manifestation of one part ...



INTERVIEW EXCERPT

I’m looking at the cover art of the project now, and I would love to get into the thematics of the work. Who is the phantom? Are you the phantom, are you looking at the phantom, are you giving up a ghost?



All of those, all of the above. The cover art was shot by the brilliant Kadeem Johnson, so shout out to him.


For this EP thematically, I was thinking about what ghosts do we allow into our homes. Are they unholy ghosts? Are they holy ghosts? Are they skeptical ghosts? Are they pessimistic ghosts? Are they friendly ghosts? What kind of ghosts are we welcoming? I believe for myself that I carry ghosts with me every day and I’d like to think most of them are beneficial.


At times when we experience unbearable pain or when we experience things that feel so out of the ordinary to us, we have to wonder, where does that come from. And I think as a Black gay man I’m constantly vetting my feelings, and the TV shows I watch, and the movies I go see, and the kind of music I listen. I understand that they can and will impact the way I navigate the world. And I don’t have the privilege to carry extra shit with me. If you listen to a lot of misogynistic music, well fuck, you’re going to regurgitate that somewhere. If you watch a lot of homophobic, transphobic television you’re going to regurgitate that somewhere. So I think it’s really important to understand where these ghosts are coming from and are these ghosts mine. Do I want them in my mind, do I want them in my home? You get to choose.


That’s the journey of the EP, where I’m trying to figure out what is mine, what do I want to keep, and what ideas serve me. I think it’s really simple. I call it Apparition but it’s a really simple concept of what serves me and what doesn’t. You take your ghosts because I want to keep mine. Take yours and go and I’ll keep mine. I don’t want yours and you don’t get to have mine. 


And I know you think a lot about home and soil and roots. I’m very curious as to what your current spiritual practices are. Are you someone who worships Orishas for example?


If anything my religion is silence. I think silence is the thing that anchors me most. There is this version of the song “a Quiet Place” that’s just absolutely beautiful and I play it often —I think you might enjoy it. That song completely sums up what my religious stance is, and that’s quiet time. And that was part of the reason I moved to LA because I needed quiet. I’m 31 years old now and when I was younger I could deal with the noise of the world. I’m not interested in living in a bubble, that’s not exciting to me but I do understand now that I do need a significant amount of silence. Sometimes I wake up and play music, then sometimes I wake up and I just want quiet. I don’t want to hear anything but the birds, just the birds. I don’t want to hear neighbors, I don’t wanna hear nobody. In New York, it’s not so possible. 
But in LA, since I moved here, I wake up and it’s quiet. 

One thing I really appreciate about your work is that the queerness is not the spectacle. The emotional grandeur is the spectacle. Would you agree with that? Is that intentional from your part?


Well thank you, that’s pretty flattering. I appreciate that. Since the first EP in 2016, my intention was to be as honest as I could be. To be as direct and piercing and ornate as I could be. A lot of my favorite writers do that,- they are very straight forward but it’s also the language, it’s so ornate. I wanted to try that. If the effect is what you just said, emotional grandeur, then that’s pleasing to hear. My intention was just to be honest. It could have been very tempting to make music where I didn’t say the word “he” talking about my lover or I could have been more elusive that I was singing about men. But I didn’t want to be. I guess maybe it was arrogance or maybe it was desperation but I knew I didn’t want to make music as someone who just “happens to be gay.” Me being queer, and more specifically me loving Black men informs the way I walk down the street, informs the joke that I crack, informs the song that I like to sing along to in the house. When you create a very detailed document, that document can become very universal. The more specific you are, the more universal the narrative becomes. 

And that honesty, as universal as it can be, is so scary because it can be ugly. It can be raggedy. It can be desperate if desperate is the truth. How did you find the bravery to give that honesty to the world?


I had to do it for myself. I just want to make sure I’m giving to myself what I ask from other people. If I’m asking the men I share space with romantically, my friends, the people in my life, to be honest then I owe it to myself. I wanted to be my own hero first before I asked someone else to be my hero. 

You had a very strict, religious upbringing. How were you able to see the God within your romantic relationships? How did you retrain yourself to see Black queer love as divine?


By just experiencing it. I have met wonderful men. I know I write a lot of heartbreak songs but that’s because sometimes you just gotta do that. But more often than not, I have experienced really, really thoughtful and intuitive and loving Black men. And that’s actually what inspired me to start serpentwithfeet to begin with. I knew when I started making this music, even before I started working on my first EP — when I was thinking about how I wanted to take up space sonically, I knew what the intention was. I wanted my work to really focus on my relationship to Black men — and not just romantically, but with my friends, men I meet on the street. I’ve met so many dynamic Black men. I gave up the religion shit a long time ago anyway. It wasn’t hard to see the divinity in that love because I experienced it, and I didn’t have anything telling me it wasn’t anymore.

This makes me think of cherubim. When I found out the definition of the word, I was mind-blown. With that song, were you saying that loving someone is equivalent to loving God or was it harmful loving someone that much?


I think my response would vary depending on the day. I think we choose our Gods, and maybe, more importantly, we design our Gods. That’s the way I feel. If you have a nickel at your house, and you say it’s a special nickel and you charge that nickel, you have it at your altar and you put your intention to it – that nickel is going to be whatever you make it out to be. It’s your lucky nickel, your revenge nickel, your ‘get a job’ nickel. That nickel is going to fulfill a purpose because you charged it that way. So our Gods are whoever we make them out to be. For some people, their God is shopping or their God is money. It depends on what you charge.

One of my Gods might be relationships, both friendship and romantic, and really wanting to master how I engage with people and how I communicate.

At that time, I was putting a lot of energy into my romantic relationship and it was really exciting to me. And the danger is it can be a bit fanatical. So it’s a balance thing like anything else. You’ve seen the soccer moms who are a little bit too pressed. Or with Tiger King, people got a little bit too pressed. The same thing can happen in romantic love, there’s a line. I’m always analyzing what my relationship is to that. “cherubim” was an exploration of that line. 

How has serpentwithfeet evolved? How are we going to meet serpentwithfeet in this new EP?


I think I’m a lot less stressed now, to be honest. I have a lot more space to think. I feel a lot more closer to myself — which is obviously a very abstract thing to say because I’ve always been with me but I just feel more connected to myself. The work is going to reflect that. There is a different calm in my life now that didn’t really exist four years ago. And I’m really thankful for it. And I’m thankful for that time – I definitely appreciate the wildness that was my life and the uncertainty that was my life all those years ago. But right now I’m very thankful for the calm and a lot of the new work is an expression of that.

Words by AFROPUNK


  1. The development of gratitude in Brazilian children and adolescents
  2. UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
    Jonathan R. Tudge, Professor (Creator)
    Institution
    The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
    Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
    Abstract: This study aimed to examine age-related changes in gratitude expression and spending preferences and the associations between children’s greatest wish and gratitude expression. Participants were 285 children of ages 7 to 14 (M = 10.87, SD = 2.27, 54% girls) from public and private schools in Porto Alegre, a large urban center of Brazil. We found that verbal gratitude was the most common type of gratitude expression. Older children were more likely to express verbal and less likely to express concrete gratitude than were younger participants; they were also more likely to choose saving money for the future and less likely to choose donating to the poor. We also found a positive correlation between hedonistic wishes and concrete gratitude and between social well-being wishes and connective gratitude. Our results suggest that gratitude is linked to the ability of thinking about others, and may be hindered by a focus on im
Edinete Maria Rosa ... Bioecological Theory of Human Developmenttheoretical-methodological assumptions. According to), BTHD, developed by Urie Bronfenbrenner, can be divided into three phases. ... According to), the evolution of the term “ecology” to “bioecology” is related to the recognition of the structural and ...


  1. Implicit vs. explicit ways of using Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory: Comments on Jaeger by Tudge, Jonathan R. (2017)

  2. Still misused after all these years? A re-evaluation of the uses of Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory of human development by Tudge, Jonathan R. (2016)

  3. The virtue of gratitude: A developmental and cultural approach by Tudge, Jonathan R. (2016)

  4. Wishes, gratitude, and spending preferences in Russian children by Tudge, Jonathan R. (2018)

  5. Methods for studying the virtue of gratitude, cross-culturally by Tudge, Jonathan R. (2018)

  6. Envolvimento paterno aos 24 meses de vida da criança [Paternal involvement with 24-month-old children] by Tudge, Jonathan R. (2017)

  7. If children won lotteries: materialism, gratitude and imaginary windfall spending by Tudge, Jonathan R. (2016)

  8. Relações entre desenvolvimento da gratidão e construção de valores em jovens [The relations between the development of gratitude and the construction of values in youth] by Tudge, Jonathan R. (2016)

  9. Wishes and gratitude of students from private and public schools by Tudge, Jonathan R. (2016)

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URIE BRONFENBRENNERS BIOECOLOGICAL THEORY OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT