Begum Nawazish Ali talks with Etizaz Ehsan

Ali Saleem or “Begum Nawazish Ali” Talks about US

Star-trek

“I get to have the best of both worlds”
-Ali Saleem

By Sohema Rehan

Ali Saleem, aka Begum Nawazish Ali, aka BB – son of a retired army officer – always evokes very strong reactions. Although his Benazir Bhutto impersonation may be his claim to fame, the Meera he has been doing lately tops that. Both acts, whenever performed, have always brought the house down, with the audience rolling over in hysterical laughter. Currently hosting The Late Night Show with Begum Nawazish Ali on Aaj TV, Ali chats up invitees comprising the who’s who of the Pakistani literati, glitterati and chatterati. Whether it arouses disgust, curiosity or appreciation, the drag show is undoubtedly the talk of the town. The same can be said of Ali’s not-so-clean break with Geo TV and the subsequent court battle that ensued over the intellectual property rights of Begum Nawazish Ali.

Apart from impersonations and drag, Ali also dabbles in writing and has penned Aap Jasai Koi, a series aired on HUM TV starring top models Aminah Haque and Iffat Rahim. Ali says he has “always wanted to be on stage,” and his ultimate fantasy was to “die performing on a glass stage in the middle of a vast sea with the whole world watching!” At some level, he feels he is spiritually connected to “the dancing girls from kothas” which he believes is the reason for his supreme confidence. Labelled a drag, a eunuch, a cross-dresser – Ali is firmly entrenched amongst the ever growing coterie of people Pakistanis generally love to hate. Over to Ali…

Q: You have been openly mimicking Benazir for ages now. Have you ever felt that you were stepping on political sensitivities?
A: Not for a minute. The first play I did was for Yasmeen Ismail at the Arts Council, organised by Interflow. I went on stage wearing a burqa and when I started my monologue, there was stunned silence – absolute disbelief – followed by a thunderous response. People even went to the extent of asking whether there was a tape recorder on, but they loved the performance.

Imran Aslam writes political satire and people who come to see the plays are politically aware and educated. The word of mouth publicity which we get is always good publicity. I was very young at that time and through the plays I was exposed to people much older than me as they were the ones who viewed my plays, giving me a chance to think better and mature faster.

There has never been a political reaction ever. I get my confidence from my honesty. I can face anybody in the world and don’t have to hide from anybody. I impersonate Meera on stage, wear saris and dance, imitate Benazir and am not scared of anybody because I am very confident and have never faced any problems.

Q: Have you ever performed for Benazir?
A: I did it informally once at her request, at Nazia and Zoheb Hassan’s house. It was Zoheb’s dholki, and Nazia had pre-warned me not to, even if requested, emphasising that Benazir had no sense of humour. However, Benazir requested that I impersonate her and Nazia gave me a silent nod of approval. When I started, there was pin-drop silence amongst the small group of people present – until the [former] Prime Minister burst out laughing. She enjoyed the performance a lot and said, “You have made my day.”

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By Adam Ellick

In Pakistan’s commercial capital, Karachi, a company that makes 2,000 fetish and bondage products operates next to a mosque.

KARACHI, Pakistan — In Pakistan, a flogger is known only as the Taliban’s choice whip for beating those who defy their strict codes of Islam.

But deep in the nation’s commercial capital, just next door to a mosque and the offices of a radical Islamic organization, in an unmarked house two Pakistani brothers have discovered a more liberal and lucrative use for the scourge: the $3 billion fetish and bondage industry in the West.

Their mom-and-pop-style garment business, AQTH, earns more than $1 million a year manufacturing 2,000 fetish and bondage products, including the Mistress Flogger, and exporting them to the United States and Europe.
…
It helps that the dozens of veiled and uneducated female laborers who assemble the handmade items — gag balls, lime-green corsets, thonged spanking skirts — have no idea what the items are used for. Even the owners’ wives, and their conservative Muslim mother, have not been informed.

“If our mom knew, she would disown us,” said Adnan, seated on a leopard-print fabric covering his desk chair.
“Due to cultural barriers and religion, people don’t discuss these things openly,” Rizwan said. “We have to hide this information.”
Even customs officials were perplexed at how to tax the items, not quite sure what they were, they said.

Recently, when a curious employee inquired about the purpose of the sleep sack, a sleeping bag-like product used in certain kinds of bondage, she was told it was a body bag for the American military in Iraq.

Adnan Ahmed, a former air traffic controller who is now AQTH’s chief operating officer, said the items were undergarments. When asked if he considered a red-hot puppy mask an undergarment, he had a straightforward, but honest reply: “No. It’s just for joking.”

Still, word of the business has at times escaped. Last year four “powerful guys” from a conservative Muslim group threatened to burn down the factory if it was not closed within a week. The brothers calmly explained that it was merely a business, and that the items were not used in Pakistan. The next day they bribed a local Islamic political organization to ensure their safety.

These days, the gravest danger is Pakistan’s crumbling economy. The brothers idolize former President Pervez Musharraf, crediting their success to his industry friendly policies, like not requiring export licenses and banning trade unions. When Mr. Musharraf resigned last year, the brothers “didn’t eat for three days,” Adnan Qadeer said.
Since President Asif Ali Zardari took office, Adnan said, trade unions have been legalized and prices of some raw materials, including leather, have shot up, as have interest rates. The result: a 15 percent dip in AQTH’s profits.

Echoing the pervasive fears of entrepreneurs across the country, the brothers are considering relocating to East Asia if Pakistan becomes more unstable — or if they receive another threat.

The shoddy factory seems like an ode to their humble upbringing. Adnan’s executive bathroom has no toilet paper. Rizwan has no office. And their preferred lunch is Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Their inspiration for success came from their father, a civil servant who supported a family of six with a $150 monthly salary. While other children were forced into labor, or played aimlessly, the Qadeer brothers had to study.

In 2001, after the brothers graduated from a university, their father lent them $800, enough to purchase their first computer and to cover several months of rent on a studio apartment. There, the brothers searched the Internet day and night for a high-value garment product that was not widely available.

They experimented with basic leather goods, like jackets and pants. Adnan slept at mosquito-infested stitching factories to oversee sample runs that, in the end, proved more costly than their Chinese competitors.
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(Submitted by a reader)

By Shaheryar Ali

The problem of LGBT [Lesbians, Gays, Bisexual, Transgender] rights in Pakistan becomes especially complex taking into account, the “combined and uneven development” of the Islamic Republic , the conflicting influences of westernization, and Islamisation, the post-modern conditions and the “queer” turn of the “world Wide LGBT movement” itself.
Despite all the hurdles Pakistan has seen an unprecedented explosion of “Queer Culture”. There has been a mushrooming of Urban Gay life style in larger cities of Pakistan. There has been an increase in “gay consciousness” in the media. There has been going on a slow transformation of “gender roles” especially visible in urban Pakistani male, described as the “rise of meterosexuality in Urban Pakistan” in the contemporary fashion discourse. An analysis of meterosexualiy reveals it’s nothing but “liberalization” of gender identities and roles. The things considered to be “taboos’ for “masculinity” have gained acceptance in increasingly larger number of males. The “attire” once considered to be “identification” for homosexuals has now become mainstream urban male fashion. The low waist jeans, bright and exotic colors, chokers, bracelets, rings,waxing, all could be traced to “attire” of an underground “homo” of the 60s in London.
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“Collective grief” of Tamil community paralyzes Ottawa
by Stuart Neatby

Demonstrators wave the flag of the Tamil Tigers in the midst of a snowstorm in downtown Ottawa, Tuesday, April 7. Photo: Stuart Neatby

OTTAWA–Canada’s 300,000-strong Tamil community, the largest Tamil diaspora on earth, has been mobilizing for months in major cities in Canada to draw attention to the dire situation in Sri Lanka.

“There is a collective grief amongst the Tamil community in Canada right now,” says David Poopalapillai, national spokesperson for the Canadian Tamil Congress (CTC). In recent months this “collective grief” has brought sections of at least two Canadian cities to a standstill.

Since Sri Lanka’s military captured the port city of Kilinochchi, a stronghold of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the country’s northern region, the death toll within the mostly Tamil region has risen to alarming levels.

In response, Tamil-Canadians have organized fasts, parliamentary meetings, vigils, protests, and acts of non-violent civil disobedience to draw attention to what many see as a campaign of deliberate killings of Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan government. This campaign included a march of more than 45,000 through downtown Toronto on January 30, the biggest march in Canada against an international conflict since Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon during the summer of 2006.

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Earbuds can pipe audio directly from a portable player to the ear. But did you ever imagine that eyeglasses or contact lenses could deliver digital images directly from a smartphone to the retina?

Several companies are developing prototypes for digital devices that look like stylish eyewear but may one day offer such capabilities to consumers. The glasses are called heads-up displays because the wearer can always look through them and see the real world — like the sidewalk just ahead — but can also see, on an overlay image, virtual information like an electronic map or an arrow showing the correct way to a destination. The glasses may also help the wearer remember the name of a long-lost friend she sees on the street.

SBG Labs, an optical technology company in Sunnyvale, Calif., is among the businesses that are developing the devices. The glasses are only slightly larger than many chic pairs of wraparounds, but instead of bearing rhinestones or designer initials, they hold a tiny projector and optics — tucked away in the side of the frame.
Such devices may have considerable appeal for consumers, so long as the glasses are attractive and lightweight, said Henry Fuchs, a professor of computer science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Professor Fuchs is a pioneer in the creation of precursors to these glasses: large, head-mounted display systems — worn, for example, by soldiers who use them to see information like a map reflected on the visor of a helmet. These displays, though, are typically quite heavy to wear.

“People who work on head-mounted displays are hungering for something that people would be willing to wear for more than an hour,” he said, “something that would go in one’s eyeglasses and not be too much clunkier than regular eyeglasses.”

No price has been set for the SBG eyeglasses, which are still in the prototype stage, said Jonathan Waldern, the company’s founder and chief technology officer. SBG is concentrating on military and avionics applications, with consumer uses to follow.

Contact lenses are also being developed for mobile displays. Babak A. Parviz, an associate professor of electrical engineering, with his team at the University of Washington in Seattle, has created a biocompatible contact lens that has miniaturized electronics and optoelectronics integrated into the lens.

Dr. Parviz says he is moving a step at a time in testing the lenses. Rabbits have worn them for 20 minutes without ill effects, he said. “The display has not yet been turned on while the rabbits are wearing the lenses,” he said. “But we have turned on the lenses while holding them with tweezers, and they work well.”
A group led by Desney S. Tan, a researcher at Microsoft Research in Redmond, Wash., is working with Dr. Parviz.

“Our role is to come up with some of the applications for the technology,” Dr. Tan said, applications that are part of a research field he called augmented reality: the combining of digital and physical worlds, in which virtual information is layered onto a person’s view of the real world.

In one possible application, the eyewear could serve as the wearer’s personal whisperer at conferences and cocktail parties. “What if every time I passed by a person, I had their name come up on the display?” Dr. Tan asked. “We could even add information on the last time I saw them and what we chatted about.”

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Professor Stephen Hawking suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the most common form of motor neurone disease.

What causes it?
ALS, which accounts for more than 90% of all cases of motor neurone disease, causes nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord called motor neurones to degenerate and eventually die.
These cells play an essential role in passing messages to the muscles.
Without them the brain cannot control movement properly, and the muscles cease to work well.
Around one in 10 cases of ALS are thought to be due to genetics, but the trigger for the other 90% of cases remains a mystery.
It is estimated that 3,500 people in the UK have ALS.

What are the symptoms?
As more and more motor neurones are lost, the muscles – particularly in the limbs – begin to waste.
Early symptoms include tripping up when walking, or dropping things.
Twitching and “cramping” of the muscles is also common, especially in the hands and feet.
In the more advanced stages, people often have difficulty speaking, swallowing or breathing and experience paralysis.
Death is usually caused by a failure of the respiratory muscles.

What is the prognosis?
Poor. The average life expectancy for somebody with ALS is just two to five years from the time symptoms first appear.
Half of patients die within 14 months of their diagnosis.
Mel Barry, of the Motor Neurone Disease Association, said: “ALS is quite a complicated and mysterious disease, and often by the time a diagnosis is made people have had symptoms for up to a year.”
However, not all people with ALS have the same symptoms, and the rate of progression of the disease can vary greatly
Professor Hawking first developed the disease when he was just 21 years old, and has lived with it for more than 40 years.
The fact that he has lived for long with the condition has been described as remarkable.
It is estimated that only about 5% of people with ALS survive for more than 10 years.
Ms Barry said: “The fact that Professor Hawking has survived for so long is very, very unusual.”

Is there any treatment?
Only one drug – Rilutek – is licensed as a treatment for ALS.
The drug works by blocking release of a key chemical called glutamate by the central nervous system, but its effect is limited, extending survival by three to six months.
Trials are currently taking place using another drug, lithium, which has produced promising results in mice, but work is still at an early stage.
Most other treatment is simply palliative, attempting to minimise the effect of the disease.
This can include ventilation systems to help with breathing, feeding tubes if swallowing is a problem and muscle relaxants for muscle cramping.

How was Professor Hawking diagnosed?
On his website, Professor Hawking says that he tries to live as normal a life as possible, and not to think about his condition.
He said his diagnosis came as a great shock.
He had been physically uncoordinated as a child, but had taken up rowing when he went to Oxford.
“In my third year at Oxford, however, I noticed that I seemed to be getting more clumsy, and I fell over once or twice for no apparent reason.
“But it was not until I was at Cambridge, in the following year, that my father noticed and took me to the family doctor.
“He referred me to a specialist and shortly after my 21st birthday I went into hospital for tests.”

What course has his condition taken?
Professor Hawking was able to feed himself and get in and out of bed until 1974.
Until that point he and his wife were able to manage without outside help, but then had to rely on live-in help from one of his research students.
In 1980, he changed to a system of community and private nurses, who came in for an hour or two in the morning and evening.
This lasted until he caught pneumonia in 1985, and had to have a tracheotomy operation.
After this, he needed 24-hour nursing care.
Before the operation, his speech had been getting more slurred, so that only a few people who knew him well could understand him.
However, he could communicate. He wrote scientific papers by dictating to a secretary, and gave seminars through an interpreter.
The tracheotomy operation removed his ability to speak altogether, and he had to rely on a small portable computer and a speech synthesizer fitted to his wheel chair.

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Inul Daratista means “the girl with the breasts.” (Ainul Rokhimah is the birth name of this Indonesian dancer.) The Islamists targeted her for her dengdut dancing (a mixture of Arabic, Indian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Malay) which has been termed as “drilling.” With bended knees, Inul gyrates her derriere with such a speed that it seems like a “glittering piston,” in the words of Time magazine reporters.
She counters her critics such as the Indonesian Ulemas Council in these words: “MUI should realize that Indonesia is not a Muslim country, it’s a democratic country.” Backers she has many too, including the former Presidents Ms. Megavati Soukarnoputri and Mr. Abdurrahman Wahid, leader of Nadhlatul Ulama, an Islamic organization.

http://www.counterpunch.org/gowani02022008.html

By Rick Nauert, Ph.D. Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D.

A new study finds formerly depressed women show patterns of brain activity when they are criticized by their mothers that are distinctly different from the patterns shown by never-depressed controls.
The participants reported being completely well and fully recovered, yet their neural activity resembled that which has been observed in depressed individuals in other studies.

The Harvard University study, which appears in the current issue of the journal Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, was led by Jill M. Hooley, professor of psychology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard.

“We found that even though our formerly depressed participants were fully well, had no symptoms, and felt fine, different things were happening in their brains when they were exposed to personal criticism,” says Hooley.

“What’s interesting to us about these findings is that although these women were fully recovered, at the level of the brain they were not back to normal.”

The study included 23 female participants, 12 of whom had no history of depression or any other mental illness and 11 of whom had previously experienced one or more depressive episodes, but had reported no symptoms for an average of 20 months. To an observer, both the control group and the formerly depressed appeared completely healthy.

While inside an fMRI scanner, the participants listened to 30-second audio recordings of remarks from their mother. Some comments were praising, some were critical and others were neutral in content.
The comments were previously recorded over the telephone with the permission of the mothers. The participants were also asked to rate their mood on a scale from one to five after hearing the different kinds of remarks.

Despite being healthy and reporting similar conscious reactions to the recorded comments, the formerly depressed showed different activity in their brains, compared to those who had never been depressed.

“When we asked them how they felt after being criticized, they responded in the same way as the controls did,” said Hooley. “But when we looked at the brain scans, the patterns of activation were quite different. So this is happening under the radar of awareness.”
Individuals who had never been depressed showed increased activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex, which are brain areas involved in the cognitive control of emotion.

The formerly depressed individuals did not show activity in these areas, but instead showed increased activity in the amygdala, a part of the brain that is responsive to potentially threatening stimuli.
Previous research has shown similar activity in these neural systems among individuals who are currently depressed.

“When these formerly depressed participants are processing criticism, some brain areas thought to be involved in emotion regulation are less active, and the amygdala is actually more active, compared to the healthy controls,” says Hooley.

“We know that this is not linked to them being symptomatic now. These findings tell us that even when people are fully recovered from an episode of depression, their ability to process criticism is still different – and probably not in a good way.”

What the researchers don’t know is whether this type of activity within these brain systems exists prior to the development of a depressive episode, or if this activity could be a kind of scar left on the brain by a past episode of depression, says Hooley.

Previous studies have shown that living in a critical family environment increases rates of relapse in depression, and so use of criticism in this study is particularly important and applicable to real life.

Care was taken to avoid placing the formerly depressed individuals in a potentially harmful situation. The researchers ensured that the criticisms were not too extreme. Mothers provided the critical remarks in a very specific format, and the remarks were criticisms that the mothers had previously voiced.

Examples of the criticisms included statements about tattoos or body piercing, failing to send thank you notes, or being inconsiderate and untidy.

To protect participants, the criticisms were required to concern topics that the daughters had previously heard about from their mothers, although the praising remarks were in some cases new to the daughters.

“We made sure that everybody left in a good frame of mind, and still had a good relationship with their mother,” says Hooley. “That was crucial.”

Source: Harvard University
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(Two years ago, Hawking experienced zero gravity.)

Photograph courtesy Zero Gravity Corporation

Kennedy Space Center, Florida, April 26, 2007—Whirling like a “gold-medal gymnast”—as one crew member put it—Stephen Hawking took blissful leave of his wheelchair for a 90-minute airplane flight featuring 25-second bouts of weightlessness.

“It was amazing,” the British astrophysicist said in a statement. “I could have gone on and on—space, here I come!”

Operated by the Zero Gravity Corporation, the flight followed a rollercoaster-like route, creating weightless conditions at the crest of each arc—a method used to prepare astronauts for space travel. A padded cabin, heart-rate and blood-pressure monitors, four physicians, and a nurse helped keep the A Brief History of Time author from harm.

ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, has rendered Hawking paralyzed and mute. Using eye motions and a synthesizer to communicate, he had said before the flight that “it will be bliss to be weightless,” according to the Associated Press.

But Hawking made clear that this was more than a personal journey.

“Life on Earth is at ever increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, or other dangers,” he said in a statement. “I think the human race has no future if it doesn’t go into space.”

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