Gerald Ford July 14, 1913 - December 26, 2006


Gerald Ford, America's 38th president, passed away December 26 at the age of 93. Family members say he died peacefully at his home in Rancho Mirage,CA.

Gerald Ford became president on August 9, 1974, under unprecedented circumstances. The only president to be sworn into office without being elected to the office of vice president or president, he served nobly during some of our country’s most turbulent years.

Ford’s administration became known for common sense, healing and integrity in government. His controversial pardon of Richard Nixon brought forgiveness to the national spotlight, even if it was not fully understood or accepted by all Americans. He was convinced that it was the right decision to bring healing for the nation and move forward into the future. History has proven him right; some speculate the move cost him the election.

Gerald Ford was elected to Congress 13 times and served for 25 years. From 1965 to 1973, he was House Minority Leader. It was from that post that he was drafted by President Richard Nixon as Vice President following the resignation of Spiro Agnew. Just two and a half years later he found himself taking the oath of office, administered by Chief Justice Warren Burger. When he addressed the nation following the administration of the oath, he asked for prayers from the American people.

WORDS FROM THE PRESIDENT ON GERALD FORD

President George Bush addressed the nation this morning from Prairie Chapel Ranch where he is spending the Christmas holiday:

My fellow Americans, all of us are saddened by the news that former President Gerald R. Ford passed away last night. I spoke with Betty Ford. On behalf of all Americans Laura and I extend to Mrs. Ford and all President Ford's family our prayers and our condolences.

President Ford was a great man who devoted the best years of his life in serving the United States. He was a true gentleman who reflected the best in America's character. Before the world knew his name, he served with distinction in the United States Navy and in the United States Congress.

As a congressman from Michigan, and then as Vice President, he commanded the respect and earned the good will of all who had the privilege of knowing him. On August 9, 1974, he stepped into the presidency without ever having sought the office. He assumed power in a period of great division and turmoil. For a nation that needed healing and for an office that needed a calm and steady hand, Gerald Ford came along when we needed him most.
--George W. Bush

May his gentle Soul rest in perfect peace.(Amen)

cont'd
Article 8.

Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.
Article 9.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
Article 10.

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11.

(1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
(2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article 12.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 13.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 14.

(1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
(2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 15.
(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Article 16.
(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Article 17.
(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 18.
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 19.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
(2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association
To be Cont'd

I Am the New Year

I am the New Year. I am an unspoiled page in your book of time.

I am your next chance at the art of living. I am your opportunity to practice what you have learned about life during the last twelve months.

All that you sought and didn’t find is hidden in me, waiting for you to search it but with more determination.

All the good that you tried for and didn’t achieve is mine to grant when you have fewer conflicting desires.

All that you dreamed but didn’t dare to do, all that you hoped but did not will, all the faith that you claimed but did not have—these slumber lightly, waiting to be awakened by the touch of a strong purpose.

I am your opportunity to renew your allegiance to Him who said, "Behold, I make all things new.”

Following a request by the African Union (AU), NATO has helped the AU expand its peacekeeping mission in Darfur by providing airlift for additional AU peacekeepers into the region and by training AU personnel.

The Alliance has agreed to continue its assistance – including providing airlift for troop rotations, as well as additional mentoring and training – until 31 December 2006, in a further effort to strengthen the African Union’s capability to end the violence and improve the humanitarian situation in Darfur.

Since July 2005, NATO has helped to provide air transport for some 16,000 peacekeepers, as well as over 500 civilian police from African troop contributing countries into and out of Darfur. NATO also has also provided training to AU officers, mainly on how to run a multinational military headquarters and manage information effectively. The Alliance works in close coordination and consultation with the European Union, which is also supporting the African Union.


Training

In addition to the airlift, some 184 AU officers have taken part in training provided by NATO at the Darfur Integrated Task Force (DITF) Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and at the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) Force Headquarters (FHQ) in El Fashir, Sudan.

The training was based on strategic-level planning and operational planning. It focuses on technologies and techniques to create an overall analysis and understanding of Darfur and to identify the areas where the application of AU assets can influence and shape the operating environment to deter crises.

In a separate activity, NATO helped organise an UN-led mapping exercise, which ran between 18 and 27 August 2005. The aim of the exercise was to help AU personnel to understand and operate effectively in the theatre of operations, as well as build their capacity to manage strategic operations. NATO provided 14 officers consisting of exercise writers and tactical-level controllers.

Presently, NATO is providing training and mentoring on managing information to AU officers in the DITF in Addis Ababa, as well in support of an AMIS Lessons Learned Exercise, together with the EU.

NATO has also agreed to the AU’s request request for additional training, to support the establishment of an AMIS Joint Operations Centre (JOC) (now known as the Joint Forward Mission HQ) in El Fashir, and in the field of unit pre-deployment certification.

NATO is also considering, in close coordination with all its partners, an African Union request for a possible NATO contribution to training assistance in the field of disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration.

Over a period of almost four centuries, four milion Africans were transported to North America and the Caribbean Islands in the Atlantic slave trade. Captured from their homeland and seperated from their tribes and families they were enslaved in a new world, where all familiar customs were absent. The African diaspora is the story of how Africans, though scattered disperesed, managed to retain their traditions and reform their identities in a new world. Elements of African culture such as religion, language, and folklore endured and were their links to their past lives. In the process of americanization, Africans formed another culture known as Afro-Americans or Creoles.
Afro-American Culture

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The transatlantic slave trade was the largest forced migration in the world. It created permanent ties between Africa and North America. Africans were shipped from many regions of Africa but mostly from those areas along the coast. The Bantu, along the Guinea coast had largest homogenous culture followed by the Mande, thus the culture of African-Americans was influenced the most by the people of these regions.

In the colonies the economic demand for slaves and the demographics of the slave population had an enormous effect on the developement of Afro-American culture. Never did their exist one Afro-American culture, for each area had a different social, economic, and political relience on slavery, which characterized a unique slave culture. For example, areas that depended on plantation farming such as the deep South and the Chesepeake had a huge number of slaves, while in comparison the North had relitively few slaves. As a result, the southern colonies more frequently imported new African slaves which constantly re-established African traditions. Each area in the colonies had the developement of a specific Afro-American culture.

Though Afro-American culture was specific to each area, there were several general cultural themes that ran throughout the Afro-American population in the colonies, one was religion. Christianinty is an execellent example of how Africans merged their own beliefs with the existing religion, and produced a theology of their own. Christianity spread rapidly throughout the slave communities during the Great Awakening, a surgence of evangelical Christianiy which swept the colonies. This movement illuminated the mystical and magical elements of Christianinty, a side which the Africans could understand and identify with. It is ironic, for white slaveholders originally used Christianinty as a tool to perpetuate obedience and docility in slaves; yet, Africans recognized the hypocrsy in the white's version of Christianity, realizing they were equal in God's eyes. Africans took the tool ment to manipulate them and used Christianinty to give them hope for the future and to strenghten their bonds between one another. While slaves were Christianized and assimilated to white culture they kept elements of their native culture alive.

African Americans blended old style with new when cooking, smithing, woodcarving, storytelling, and gospel singing traditions. Africans added their own spices and cooking style to some pre-existing European dishes. Slaveowners were also influenced by African cooking styles which is an example of the blending of the cultures. Many African traditions were kept alive by placing familiar, symbols (such as the snake) in smithed gates and window frames. The wood that the carver chose played an important role in native culture preservation. This meticulous tradition lead the way for woodcarvers to make canes, statues, and sculptures such as chains, to show the bondage they endured. The carvings were very detailed and had relevance to the family and friends of the woodcarver. Songs that began in the fields of the plantations to pass the work day evolved into a new type of music, gospel. Gospel music combined the themes of salvation and freedom of Christianity with a native style of singing and dancing. These examples show the integration of native culture with traditional european culture.

Language

In the past the Pigeon English spoken by Africans was seen as proof that Africans were not intelligent enough to learn the English language. Through recent studies, we have learned that in the English spoken by African Americans, ties to African Languages can be traced. The Creole languages like Gullah and Pigeon English, still spoken in parts of the U.S. today, reflect pieces of the African culture that survived slavery, not an inability to learn English.

The English spoken by the slaves was greatly influenced by their native languages. Gullah was influenced by the languages of the Fante, Ga, Kikongo, Kimbundu, Mandinka, Twi, Ewe, Ibo and Yorba. As time went on, the Creole languages (influenced and) were also influenced by the languages of settlers, such as, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, as well as Native Americans such as theCreek, Cherokee and many others. By mixing parts of the languages spoken around them, African-Americans created a way to express themselves and communicate with others in the "New World."