- Until the Last Prayer
One Sunday only three of them had come. There was no pastor preaching. There was no gospel music playing, no choir singing. Nobody stood up clapping hands or playing the tambourine. They just sat on their worn, pink plush seats in empty rows, reading the yellowed bible-study books. Because it was cold in the prayer hall, they wore their overcoats. Robert Scott, who used to dress up in fancy clothes for the Mass, wore a casual, woolen sweater. He looked tired. In his voice lay resignation.
For over half a century the New Mount Zion Pentecostal Holiness Church of America has been an integral part of the East Tremont section of The Bronx. Like a ship it plunged through the swirls and waves of life. For fifty years it carried its congregation safely through the hardships of a troubled neighborhood. It passed through the fires of the Sixties and Seventies. It navigated through unemployment, poverty, street gangs and crime. But now, it seems, God had finally withdrawn his blessing and abandoned the faithful. Mount Zion was never rich, but now it had slipped into serious financial trouble; the old members of the congregation faded away; new members were not in sight. Is this how churches die?
…
Read my Master’s Project: bernold_until the last prayer.doc
- A Global Classroom: Real People, Real-Time, 9,000 Miles Apart
It was an early morning in Lewisohn Hall. But for Lee Yee Cheong the night had just begun. The retired Malaysian engineer watched the American students who drowsily stumbled into class room 308. Equipped with coffee cups and tea in thermos flasks they took their seats at group of tables arranged in a square. Lee Yee Cheong looked at them and
smiled. And yet, he was more than 9,000 miles away, sitting in a conference room at the University of Malaya in Malaysia.
This slow-motion drama ispart of a teaching experimentat Columbia University led by Jeffrey Sachs, the economist. 150 students from 12 universities from all over the world take part in his new course on sustainable development. To make this possible, the school uses a variety of web based technologies to share ideas and to share video and audio across many countries simultaneously…
Read the full article in Fault Lines, page 18
- They Work the Trash – Immigrant Pickers and Sorters in the US-Garbage Industry
It is a messy, 15-feet-high heap of filthy paper, the remains of what used to be dailies, magazines, commercial folders, packaging material and gift wraps. A dozen men in blue jeans and yellow safety vests, some of them wearing dust masks, comb trough the mess, before fork lifters and a shovel excavator move the dune to a conveyor belt at the side of the hall. By the end of the day the workers will have baled tons of waste paper into compressed cubes that vaguely remind the spectator of what they used to be.
This is Automated Waste Disposal in Danbury, CT, a recycling facility that holds waste disposal contracts for most of western Connecticut and Westchester and Putnam counties in New York. 500 men work their magic to turn waste into the raw material for new products. Cans get pressed to become aluminum again and glass bottles, broken and crushed, get ready for rebirth.
Read this article in Fault Lines
- Road Trip to Labor – How Construction Workers in the Bronx find Jobs
by Matthias G. Bernold and Veronica S. Zaragovia
As he looked out the dirty window of the old Ford minivan, Daryl Mackie leaned forward as the van approached East 97th Street and Third Avenue. “We’re in the war zone now,” he said, lowering his voice in a conspiratorial tone. “Our enemies are up the block. They are trying to intimidate us. That’s all they can do because we get there earlier and we work harder.”
At 6:30 a.m. almost every morning, Mackie climbs into the van with up to 10 people, mostly men, searching for work through United Hispanic Construction Workers, a non-profit coalition group. People usually find out about United Hispanic through relatives or friends who have found jobs in the past through the coalition. Many have no prior experience in construction, but they learn on the job.
They take a road trip around New York City, starting at Hunts Point in the South Bronx, where the office is located, and traveling some days to the tip of lower Manhattan. They stop the van at construction sites in search of work, even if it is just a job for only a day…
Read this story at the Columbia Journalism School Web Page
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North Line
KAMPUSCH A neighbourhood of railroaders 15 km off Vienna city limits. A woman with a childhood behind her, but without youth. A beheaded psychopath. A culture of turning a blind eye and so many questions left unanswered.
Did he take a last glance at the Millennium Tower or the Giant Wheel, when he climbed on the shoulder? Did he run along the rails on the rough ballast, to find the ideal place? Or did he put his neck on the shining rail, as if it were a block? Did he ponder things, pray, repent? Did he pass his life in review? Death could not have caught him unawares. When a train is approaching, the rails start to vibrate more and more. The sound of wheels thundering along the rails and the roar of the engine get louder and louder. Right beside the rails the noise becomes painful. And the whistling of the warning signal goes through and through.
Wednesday, 23rd of August 2006, at 20.59, a high-speed train on the Nordbahn between the stations Praterstern and Traisengasse cuts off Mr. Wolfgang Priklopil’s head. Passengers will say later that they merely felt a slight jolt. Then the engineer slowly stopped the train.
He took a secret into the grave with him that will not only be bugging policemen, psychologists and journalists for years to come. The Lower Austrian kept the today 18-year old Ms. Natascha Kampusch prisoner for eight years in a dungeon under his garage. When she managed to escape last Wednesday he ended his life. How did he manage to keep the kidnapped prisoner for so long, without anybody noticing? Why did he do this to the girl? How did he become what he was?
full text: Natascha Kampusch_article_falter
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- Three bottles of green and an anti-macho cell phone: Exploring the MIT Media Lab. @ World Press Institute
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