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Just under two weeks ago, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen emerged from her first meeting as head of the central bank's policymaking committee to talk to reporters.
Stocks fell.
As David Wessel of the Brookings Institution told Morning Edition, Yellen seemed to fumble a key question. The central bank had issued a statement that some investors thought hinted it might start raising short-term interest rates earlier in 2015 than was anticipated.
In response to a question about interest rates, Yellen didn't quite clear things up. Since financial markets supposedly don't like uncertainty and surprises, stock prices dropped.
On Monday, in a speech to the National Interagency Community Reinvestment Conference in Chicago, Yellen apparently made things clearer in many investors' minds — ironically, by warning the economy still isn't doing too great.
For instance, she said that:
-- "The recovery still feels like a recession to many Americans, and it also looks that way in some economic statistics. At 6.7 percent, the national unemployment rate is still higher than it ever got during the 2001 recession."
-- "In some ways, the job market is tougher now than in any recession. The numbers of people who have been trying to find work for more than six months or more than a year are much higher today than they ever were since records began decades ago."
In the somewhat perverse world of Wall Street, a little bit of gloom-and-doom-type talk from the Fed chief was just what the markets seemed to want to hear. Stock prices were up about 1 percent as of midday. Why? Because a still-weak economy means the Fed likely will keep short-term interest rates low well into 2015 and will continue to only gradually reduce the amount of money it is pouring into the economy with its bond-buyback program.
In other words, the Fed still thinks the economy is weak ... which means it's going to continue helping the economy ... which means the economy should continue to expand ... which means that at some point, growth will be strong enough to let the Fed start raising interest rates and stop buying bonds ... which means ...
Uh, oh.
Right now, it seems that bad news is good news for the markets. But at some point, won't good news be bad news because it means the Fed's going to start trying to slow things down?
We'll leave that for another day.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


text: European style and contemporary elegance combine in the Fleurco Monaco Tub Shield. Its cleverly designed features like adjustable wall jambs, fixed panel, clear glass shelf support and deflector shield technology provide easy installation and make this one-door tub shield a handy and long-lasting device. The frameless rectangular design made of clear tempered glass keeps the light and adds a sophisticated touch to the bathroom space. This product is available in various finishes to match any bathroom styling. Configured as:Hardware Finish: Bright ChromeGlass Type: Clear GlassDoor Direction: LeftShower Door Hinges: OvalMicrotek Glass Protection: 2 Panels

subset: commoncrawl


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Could your home do with a little more garden landscaping? Probably so, and that is a good thing. In fact you should be very excited about it because there is nothing more fun than garden landscaping, it will get your imagination working overtime and you will have a ball planting and rearranging your plants and flowers.
By layering your garden landscaping beds you will be able to add a whole other level of beauty to your landscaping design. Your yard is the first thing that people will see when they come to your house and giving a grand tour that includes a fabulous garden is always fun and exciting. You will be the talk of the neighborhood, and for all the right reasons this time, when you do some really good garden landscaping.
Layering your garden landscaping design is easy to do. You need to know the flowers that you are going to plant first however. The choices that you make as far as the flowers and other plants will affect just how your garden landscaping is laid out. For example you do not want to have the taller plants in front of the shorter ones. This is obvious but you should still make a rough sketch of where you want things laud out for your garden landscaping before you begin. This will help you to keep thins as simple as possible. Your garden landscaping will go a lot faster this way and you will run into fewer problems as you go.
When layering you should have about three layers. Your back row should face north, if it can, and the back row should have the tallest plants and as the rows descend so should the heights of the plants and flowers. The trick of this kind of garden landscaping is that oftentimes the plants we buy are baby plants. So you will need to talk to those working at your local gardening store about how large the plants will grow to be. This is key to successful garden landscaping. If the front or middle row of your garden landscaping design is going to grow much higher than the last row, then you will have to do some rearranging.
The layering affect of your garden landscaping design will add depth and make your garden much more interesting to look at. This is what will make your garden landscaping a success.


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My life at Guantanamo
By Moath al-Alwi
July 7, 2013
A month ago, the guards here at Guantanamo Bay gave me an orange jumpsuit. After years in white and brown, the colours of compliant prisoners, I am very proud to wear my new clothes. The colour orange is Guantanamo's banner. Anyone who knows the truth about this place knows that orange is its only true colour.
My name is Moath al-Alwi. I have been a prisoner of the United States at Guantanamo since 2002. I was never charged with any crime and I have not received a fair trial in US courts. To protest this injustice, I began a hunger strike in February. Now, twice a day, the US military straps me down to a chair and pushes a thick tube down my nose to force-feed me.
When I choose to remain in my cell in an act of peaceful protest against the force-feeding, the prison authorities send in a Forced Cell Extraction team: six guards in full riot gear. Those guards are deliberately brutal to punish me for my protest. They pile up on top of me to the point that I feel like my back is about to break. They then carry me out and strap me into the restraint chair, which we hunger strikers call the torture chair.
A new twist to this routine involves the guards restraining me to the chair with my arms cuffed behind my back. The chest strap is then tightened, trapping my arms between my torso and the chair's backrest. This is done despite the fact that the torture chair features built-in arm restraints. It is extremely painful to remain in this position.
Even after I am tied to the chair, a guard digs his thumbs under my jaw, gripping me at the pressure points and choking me as the tube is inserted down my nose and into my stomach. They always use my right nostril now because my left one is swollen shut after countless feeding sessions. Sometimes, the nurses get it wrong, snaking the tube into my lung instead, and I begin to choke.
The US military medical staff conducting the force-feeding at Guantanamo is basically stuffing us prisoners to bring up our weight - mine had dropped from 168 pounds to 108 pounds, before they began force-feeding me. They even use constipation as a weapon, refusing to give hunger strikers laxatives despite the fact that the feeding solutions inevitably cause severe bloating.
If a prisoner vomits after this ordeal, the guards immediately return him to the restraint chair for another round of force-feeding. I've seen this inflicted on people up to three times in a row.
Even vital medications for prisoners have been stopped by military medical personnel as additional pressure to break the hunger strike.
Those military doctors and nurses tell us that they are simply obeying orders from the colonel in charge of detention operations, as though that officer were a doctor or as if doctors had to follow his orders rather than their medical ethics or the law.
But they must know that what they are doing is wrong, else they would not have removed the nametags with their pseudonyms or numbers. They don't want to be identifiable in any way, for fear of being held accountable someday by their profession or the world.
I spend the rest of my time in my solitary confinement cell, on 22-hour lockdown. The authorities have deprived us of the most basic necessities. No toothbrushes, toothpaste, blankets, soap or towels are allowed in our cells. If you ask to go to the shower, the guards refuse. They bang on our doors at night, depriving us of sleep.
They have also instituted a humiliating genital search policy. I asked a guard why. He answered: "So you don't come out to your meetings and calls with your lawyers and give them information to use against us."
But the prisoners' weights are as low as their spirits are high. Every man I know here is determined to remain on hunger strike until the US government begins releasing prisoners.
Those of you on the outside might find that difficult to comprehend. My family certainly does. If I'm lucky, I'm allowed four calls with them each year. My mother spent most of my most recent call pleading with me to stop my hunger strike. I had only this to say in response: "Mom, I have no choice." It is the only way I have left to cry out for life, freedom and dignity.
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Hongdao Village, Machikou Town, Changping DistrictPrice rates
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Info & Description
The Vanilla Garden International Youth Hostel is located at Changping District of Beijing, it adjoins to the Beijing-Miyun Canal and closes to the Great Wall and Ming Tombs. The hostel was authorized by the Guangzhou office of Hostelling International in July 2006,and opened in August of the same year.Changping District is called "Back Garden" of Beijing, it's surrounded by the Great Wall, there are many scenic spots in the region, the Ming Tombs, the Great Wall at Juyong Pass, the Nine-Dragon Amusement Park, China Aeronautical Museum, China Tank Museum, the Ming Tombs International Golf Club, Beijing Aerodone Club, and many natural scenic spots and forest reserves.
The Vanilla Garden International Youth Hostel is situated at west of the Changping District, the periphery vegetation of the hostel is luxuriant, it's holding a land area of 20,000 square meters, and own 1 orchard, 3 fish pond, 1 Tibetan mastiff and sled dog tame field, the restaurant have prepared various styles of Chinese food for the backpackers.
The pseudo-classic style guest rooms quite has elegance and warmth, it's providing various styles of rooms for the backpackers, each room has individual bathroom and air conditioning, drinking trough and TV are also included. The internet access computers, bar, barbecue area, reading room, theater, satellite TV, laundry room, self-service kitchen and dining room are provided for the backpackers in 24h. The wireless wide band network already covered the majority of the building.
The hostel service desk provides currency exchange, photo printing, document scanning, travel consultation, national& international telephone call, bicycle rent, taxi rent, luggage checking and ticket management for backpackers.
Vanilla Garden, the family of backpackers, welcome home!
- Air conditioning
- Parking lot
- Security boxes / Lockers
- Security boxes / Lockers
- Security boxes / Lockers
- Laundry
- Internet access
- Internet access
- Bar
- Heating
- Indoor parking / garage
- Restaurant
- Rent a bike
- Bike Rental
- 1 bed/s private with Watercloset (bathroom)
- double bed private with Watercloset (bathroom)
- 4 bed/s mixed dorm with Watercloset (bathroom)
- 3 bed/s mixed dorm with Watercloset (bathroom)
- 5 bed/s mixed dorm with Watercloset (bathroom)


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Having braces can be frustrating when you have to be cautious about eating certain foods or having to avoid them altogether. Making sure your braces don't bend or break is vital when you're trying to straighten your teeth quickly and properly. Dr. Richard Elliott and our team have come up with a list of foods to avoid, and which foods you can enjoy while you have braces.
No matter how careful you are, excessive chewing of hard-to-eat foods will eventually cause problems for you and your braces. Knowing what you can and cannot eat at a meal may be helpful when you first get your braces on.
Some foods are too hard for braces, because they can break wires or create damage that will have to be fixed by Dr. Richard Elliott. Avoiding the following snacks will prevent this from occurring:
- Hard candies
- Gum
- Nuts
- Popcorn
- Some hard raw vegetables or fruits (carrots, apples)
- Ice
- Chips
There are plenty of safe options for breakfast. They include eggs, yogurt, pancakes, oatmeal, soft toast, bananas, and even bacon.
For lunch, avoid hard or abrasive foods, undercooked vegetables, or apples. Safer options include a delicious stew, soft-breaded deli sandwich, or a mixed salad. Always be careful when biting into foods, and try to cut solid meal items into small chewable portions whenever possible.
A healthy braces-friendly dinner can come in many forms. Soft, steamed vegetables paired with a lean protein make a great option. The addition of rice or quinoa can complete the meal. Just remember to brush and floss after, because these small grains are likely to get stuck between braces and teeth.
During your treatment, Dr. Richard Elliott will tighten your braces at each checkup. Braces tightening can sometimes leave your teeth feeling sore afterward. During this time, we recommend picking soft food options until the pain goes away, such as:
- Pudding
- Mashed potatoes
- Soup
- Ice cream
- Cottage cheese
- Peas
- Pasta
- Yogurt
- Muffins
It's also essential to pay close attention to your oral health routine. When food is stuck between braces, you're more likely to experience plaque and decay buildup. If you want to keep your teeth from appearing discolored when your braces come off, keep up with brushing and flossing after every meal!
If you notice your braces are damaged after you've eaten a meal, contact our Highlands Ranch office to schedule an appointment right away. Our team is here to help with any issues that come up while you are in braces, and to answer any questions you may have about which foods you can and cannot eat.


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Matthew chapter 9, looking at verse 35 and following into the first verse of chapter 10. We've had a great week this week sharing with those who have been with us. In our morning sessions, we have been teaching the principles of ministry out of the life of the Apostle Paul. And now this morning, in the wonderful sovereign working of God, we come to our passage of Scripture in Matthew which teaches us the ministry principles of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. So now we learn from the Master Teacher who Himself taught the Apostle Paul. How fitting it is that the Spirit of God has brought us to this instructive and thrilling passage for our time together this morning.
Let me read it to you. Follow along as I read. "And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion on them, because they were faint and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. Then saith He unto His disciples, 'The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth laborers into His harvest. And when He had called unto Him His twelve disciples, He gave them power against unclean spirits to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease."
Now this passage is more quoted, I think, than explained and more used than understood. I hope this morning that we can gain some insight into what our Lord is really doing here. Because I think in a very wonderful way, in a very small section of Scripture, we get very comprehensive insight into the style and the direction of our Lord's ministry.
Now the text marks a transition point in Matthew's planning. Systematically, Matthew has moved through the writing of this gospel to present all of the salient elements of the Kingship of Jesus Christ. He began with the ancestry of the King, the genealogy in chapter 1; then the arrival of the King, the virgin birth; then the anticipation of the King, the fulfillment of all of those Old Testament prophecies; then came the announcer of the King, John the Baptist; and then the approval of the King in His baptism, as the Father said, "This is My beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased;" then the attack on the King as Satan met Him in temptation; then the affirmations of the King as He taught in chapter 5, 6, and 7 and affirmed the authority of the Word of God. And then most recently we've been looking at the attestations of the King. The miracles in chapters 8 and 9 that attest to His deity.
And now, as we look at chapter 10, we meet the associates of the King, as He calls into service the twelve and sends them out with the message of the kingdom. But between the attestation and the miracles and the section on the disciples is this very small transition taking us out of His miracle ministry and into His discipling ministry, away from the multitudes and toward the individual discipling of His apostles. And that transition is very important. Jesus sees the vastness of the task and realizes that He has to have some help. And so in chapter 10, we begin an entire section on the discipleship process; and we'll be getting to that in our next study. But for now, we look at this most significant section in the transition.
We see three things as we look at the Lord here. First of all, His ministry in verse 35. Then His motives, verse 36 and the first part of verse 37. And then His method, the last of verse 37 and through the first verse in chapter 10. His ministry, its motives, and methods. Let's look, first of all, at His ministry. And we have already looked at verse 35 in our last study together, so we'll not spend a tremendous amount of time in detail, but I do feel it's important to understand it, so we'll review somewhat. Verse 35 says here is His ministry: "He went about all the cities and villages" – and we remember from Josephus that, in Galilee, there were probably at least 3 million people living in about 204 cities and villages, and He moved about all of these places – "teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every sickness and every disease among the people." Whether they were tucked in little obscure hamlets on the hillsides or whether they were down in the heat of the valley or whether they were in the large cities that ringed the sea itself, He went everywhere, and even in between, in the vineyards and the fields, and He met the people, and He met their needs.
Basically, we find in His ministry three specific elements. First, verse 35 says, "He was teaching in their synagogues." The synagogues were the place of teaching. The Yiddish word for synagogue is still the word schul, S-C-H-U-L, much like our word school. They saw the synagogue as the place where they met to be instructed in the Word of God. And when they came to the synagogue – and they came not only on the Sabbath, but at least two other times during the week, plus on every other festival day, feast day, and holy day – and every time they came, an officer would read from the Pentateuch, the Law; and then another one would read from the prophets; and the someone would translate that Hebrew into Aramaic, which was the common language of the day; and then someone else would stand up and give an expository sermon from one or both of those passages.
Philo, the historian, wrote that the main feature of a synagogue was the detailed reading and exposition of Scripture. They came there to hear the Scripture and to have it explained to them. That is why in Berea, when Paul spoke, they searched the Scriptures to see if in fact these things were really true. And there was a custom known as "the freedom of the synagogue." And the freedom of the synagogue provided that any visiting rabbi or distinguished guest could be the one to give the exposition or the sermon. Consequently, our Lord took advantage of that all over Galilee. He would go into the synagogues, wherever they were meeting, and when it came time for the sermon, as a distinguished teacher, He would stand and He would interpret the Old Testament which had been read.
Now this was the way it had been for a long time. When the people came back into the land after the Babylonian captivity, of course by then, they had founded synagogues. They were founded in the captivity. And when they came back from there, they came back to the land, you remember they took the Word of God in the eighth chapter of Nehemiah and they read it. And then it says they gave the sense of it or, that is, they explained what it meant. Translating it and explaining it.
Paul writing to Timothy says, "Until I come, give your attention to reading the text, explaining the text, and applying the text." So our Lord's pattern of ministry was this: When He gathered together with the religious people, when He gathered with them in the synagogue, He taught them the meaning of the Scripture. He exposited the Old Testament, a didactic, expository teaching ministry. And we still believe that that is the mandate for the people of God when they come together to be taught the meaning of the Word of God.
Secondly, it says He preached the gospel of the kingdom. The word here is kērussō, to herald or to proclaim or to announce, to make a public proclamation. Outside the synagogue, on the streets, the highways, the hillsides, by the sea, in a house, anywhere and everywhere He went, He was announcing the kingdom. He was proclaiming the kingdom. He was affirming that God was the King, and that God had a kingdom, and that God was offering that kingdom, and there was a standard for entry into that kingdom, and He was telling them what that was. And that entering into the kingdom brought about tremendous and eternal blessing, and so He was proclaiming the kingdom.
You might say that was the evangelism; whereas, the teaching in the synagogue was the edification. So the people gathered together to be taught; and they went out to proclaim. And we believe that that model still stands, even in the church. The church gathers to be instructed and scatters to proclaim. Our Lord having established the pattern. Everywhere He went, as summarized so marvelously in the Sermon on the Mount, He would announce that the kingdom was at hand. He would announce that, to be blessed, you must enter the kingdom. He would announce that the entry into the kingdom is narrow way, but it is a way of blessedness. He was proclaiming the kingdom. He was proclaiming salvation.
But there was a third element of His ministry. It says in verse 35, He was healing every sickness and every disease among the people. As I've told you before, for all intents and purposes, in His lifetime, Jesus utterly banished disease from Palestine. In fact, John says in his gospel that, "All the books of the world couldn't contain all of the things that He did." The miracles of chapter 8 and 9 – and there are basically nine miracles – are only samples in various categories of expressions of power. By no means do they touch anywhere near the number of miracles that He did.
Now why did He do these miracles? Why did He heal every sickness and every disease among the people? For two reasons, number one, because it was a way to verify His message. You see, Jesus went into the synagogue and taught differently than all the other teachers. He went into the highways and byways and preached different than all the preachers. He was saying things that were diametrically opposite the things that the people were being taught by their leaders. He was in utter disagreement with the leading religious lights of His time. In most of His messages, He actually confronted and attacked them. Now why should the people believe such messages? Why should they listen to this gentleman from Nazareth who was not even trained in the proper schools? Well frankly, the miracles were the thing that convinced them that He was of God. They were verifiers of His message. The blind man had it right when he said, "We know that this Man must be of God." Nicodemus had it right when he said, "We know that no man can do the things that You do except God be with Him." Jesus said, "If you can't believe My Words, at least believe Me for the very works' sake." How else are you going to explain these supernatural miracles? So the first purpose was to verify the message.
But there was a second purpose, and I think this is most, most important. I believe Jesus did these miracles to demonstrate the loving tenderness of the heart of God. I believe that Jesus wanted those people to know that God was not like the Pharisees said He was but that God was compassionate. God was sympathetic. God was tender. God was loving. God was filled with kindness. God was merciful. I believe this is a part of Jesus' ministry, and I believe that it is essential in ours, as well. You can teach the Word of God. You can proclaim the good news of the kingdom and how to enter it, but you must also know that Jesus touched people where they hurt and was sympathetic and kind and caring and loving; and that's part of it too. It's so important that people understand that. That's why Paul says, "If you speak with the tongues of men and angels and have not" – what? – "love, you're nothing but noise. Sounding bronze and a tinkling cymbal."
Dr. Paul Brand, who has worked so wonderfully with those who have leprosy, writes this in his book, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made – and this about his Lord he writes, "Jesus reached out His hand and touched the eyes of the blind. He touched the skin of the person with leprosy and the legs of the cripple. When a woman pressed against Him in a crowd to tap into the healing energy she hoped was there, He felt the drain of that energy, stopping the noisy crowd and asking, 'Who touched Me?' I've sometimes wondered why Jesus so frequently touched the people He healed, many of whom must have been unattractive, obviously diseased, unsanitary, and smelly. With His power, He easily could've waved a magic wand. In fact a wand would've reached more people than a touch. He could've divided the crowd into affinity groups and organized His miracles. Paralyzed people over there, feverish people here, people with leprosy there, raising His hands to heal each group efficiently en masse. But He chose not to. Jesus' mission was not chiefly a crusade against disease, but rather a ministry to individual people. He wanted those people, one by one, to feel His love and warmth and His full identification with them. Jesus knew He could not readily demonstrate love to a crowd, for love usually involves touching."
Dr. Brand went on to illustrate this by telling about his parents. He writes, "I look at the impact my parents had. Although they went to India to preach the gospel, by living in tactile awareness of peoples' needs, they began to respond on several levels. Within a year, they were involved in the fields of medicine, agriculture, education, evangelism, and language translation. My mother and father worked for seven years in India before anyone converted to Christianity. And in fact, that first conversion came as a direct result of their healing love.
"Villagers would often abandon their sick outside our home, and my parents would care for them. Once when a Hindu priest was dying of influenza, he sent his own frail, sickly, nine-month-old daughter to be raised by my parents. None of his swamis would care for the sick child. They would've let her die. But my parents took her in, nursed her to health, and adopted her as their own, and I gained a sister, Ruth, and my parents gained an unexpected response of trust. The villagers were so moved by this example of Christian love, that a few soon accepted Christ's love for themselves.
"Years later, when my mother, Granny Brand, was 85, long after my father had died, she helped forge a medical breakthrough. She had often treated gross abscesses on the legs of mountain people by draining the pus and excising a long, thin Guinea worm. Distressed by the frequency of these abscesses, she studied the problem and learned that the worm's life cycle included a larval stage spent in water. Knowing the peoples' habits well, she quickly deduced that wading in water was probably the means of transmission. Cashing in on the trust and love she had built up through decades of personal ministry, she rode her horse from village to village to village" – 85 years old – "urging the people to build stone walls around their shallow wells and to prevent foot contact with the water. In a few years, this old lady had single-handedly caused the eradication of all such worms and their resulting abscesses in two complete mountain ranges." Then he says, "I wonder how effective Granny Brand would have been had she dropped leaflets from an airplane."
In Hebrews it says that Jesus is touched with the feelings of our infirmities. That He learned suffering through His humanness. It's a stupefying concept that God's Son learned through His experiences on earth. Before taking on a body, God had no personal experience of physical pain of the effect of rubbing against needy people. But God dwelt among us and touched us and was touched by us and fully identified with our pain. And that is part and parcel of the uniqueness of Christianity, that we touch people.
Hinduism is the most cruelly neglectful of all religious systems in the world. It's castes forbid that anyone of a certain caste ever touch anyone of another caste. Mohammedanism, who's history runs red with the blood of murdered slaves in a secular and religious bloodshed, cannot be expected to show much pity for those in need. They give gifts only to gain merit for the giver. The Buddhists do the same. Confucianism allows a man to drown in sight of a crowd without anybody lending a helping hand. But Christianity is not so. Jesus touched people. I think He was talking to us. We can't do the miracles. But we can do the sympathizing love, and I believe we're called to do that. What was the ministry of Jesus? It was teaching, expository teaching. It was preaching, proclaiming, and it was healing people by the affection and the tenderness of His care that manifested the heart of God.
What motivated Him? Let's look secondly at His motives, and this is the heart of our message. What motivated Him? Why did He do this? Why did God condescend? Why did God care? Verse 36, "But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion on them, because they were faint and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. Then saith He unto His disciples, 'The harvest truly is full.'" Stop there. Now in those few phrases we have the motives of Jesus. Marvelous uncovering of the heart of our Lord is right there. There are three elements to His ministry: Teaching, preaching, touching. And there are three elements to His motive: One, compassion – verse 36. What a beautiful thought. "He saw the multitudes and was moved with compassion on them." You can picture Jesus on an elevated place, perhaps on a hillside, and as He looks down the little bank, the slope, He sees this mass of people before Him. They were always there. And they came mostly with physical needs, diseases, deformities, hunger. And He sees them, but He sees beyond the physical to the real needs. And we get a glimpse into His heart.
As Matthew says, "He was moved with compassion." What does that mean? Well, our word compassion from the Latin compassio means to suffer with. Jesus suffered with them. He felt their pain. Now listen, this basically has nothing to do with us. This is the expression of an attribute of God. He cared because God is love and love cares. It is the nature of God. The first great motive in the heart of Christ to teach and preach and heal was that God cares about men. It is His nature to care. It is His heart to care. And so it is over and over again stated in the gospel record that Jesus had compassion, for God cares by virtue of who He is.
In Matthew 14 verse 14, "Jesus went forth and saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion." Chapter 15 verse 32, "Jesus called His disciples to Him and said, 'I have compassion on the multitude.'" In Matthew chapter 18 verse 27, He gives a parable and says, "The lord of that servant was moved with compassion and loosed him and forgave him the debt," and He, of course, is the Lord in the parable. In chapter 20 verse 34, "Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes, and immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed him." And it isn't just Matthew. Mark 1:41, Jesus was moved with compassion, put forth His hand and touched a leper. Chapter 5 of Mark verse 19, again it says, "Go home to your friends and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you and hath had compassion on you." He had compassion, because it was His nature to love.
Now the Greek term here is very, very interesting – very interesting. It literally means to feel something in the bowels. The word splagchnon is the noun form and it means bowels. If you want to know how it's used in the Bible, listen to this. Talks about Judas, and it says Judas purchased a field, Acts 1:18, "and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst and all his bowels gushed out." The word literally means the midsection, the internal organs, the intestines, the entrails, the inward parts. We would use it in the vernacular today and say the guts. The Bible talks about the bowels of the earth. That means that central portion, the stuff that's in the middle; and literally it says, "Jesus was moved in the bowels upon them." Now you say, why did they use that word? What a strange thing to express concern. I mean if you were to go to your girlfriend and say, "I love you with all my bowels," someone would take that wrong.
But you want to know something? That is no different than going to someone and saying, "I love you with all my heart." That ugly, bloody, pulsating blob of muscle that quivers in your chest. So it all depends on how you perceive that. When we see a little valentine with a little thing that doesn't look like a human heart at all. If you ever sent a valentine to somebody with an actual – well you understand. It was just basically an expression. It was just an expression. And the Hebrews talked about the heart, and they talked about the bowels, and they had something in mind. They talked about the heart as the seat of thought and action and will.
For example, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he;" or Proverbs 16:23, "The heart of the wise teaches his mouth;" or Hebrews 4:12, "The thoughts and intents of the heart;" or Romans 10:10, "With the heart man believes;" or Matthew 15, "Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts;" or, "Out of the abundance of the mouth – out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks." The heart, then, is the initiator in Hebrew thinking. There you find the root of thought and action and will. The bowels in the Hebrew thinking are the responder, the reactor. The Hebrew expressed attitudes and emotions in physiological symptoms, not in abstractions. And so when they wanted to express something they felt very deeply and were very pained about, they said, "I hurt in my midsection." Now we understand that. Our midsection responds to pain. When we see a horrible accident or a disaster, we get sick in our stomach. Sexual feelings, fears, needs, we feel anxieties here. We have ulcers, colitis, upset stomachs, because here is where emotion grips us. Jesus literally said that He was wrenched in pain in His midsection when He saw these people.
Listen, does God care? Does God care supremely? Does God care and love beyond anything that human being could ever experience? Yes. Then put God in a body, and let Him love like that, and let Him care like that, and it'll wrack that human body; and that is what it did. It's not an abstraction. And I see that in Matthew 8:17, where it says that He was dealing with all these sick people, "that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, 'He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.'" It isn't the idea that He got the leprosy when He healed the leper. It is the idea that He wrenched in agony in sympathy and compassion, for He felt the pain of seeing what sickness did to those He loved. I've seen parents sick to death over an ill child. And no parent has ever felt the compassion or the love that Christ felt, because it was God loving in that human body.
For an illustration, look at the eleventh of John. Lazarus is dead and Jesus comes there, and He goes to the grave. And in verse 33, it says, "When Jesus therefore saw Mary weeping, and the Jews also weeping who came with her, He groaned in His Spirit and was troubled." I can't express the depth of what that means. The terms mean He was deeply moved. He was seized by an anguishing emotion, but only He would know how a supremely loving God is wracked by the pain of seeing the ones He loved in anguish. And I don't think He was just pain because of Lazarus, because He was going to raise Lazarus out of the grave. I think He felt there all the pain of knowing that all of humanity that He loved was going to live its entire history out in anxiety, because it would always be facing the death of those it loves. I think He gathered together all of the anguish and pain that the knowledge of death itself could bring into one person's thoughts.
He was pained, and it says literally in verse 35, the Greek says, "He burst into tears." And if He cried, believe me, He cried in an utterly comprehensive manner. Verse 38 then says, "He groaned again," and you could translate that one, "He shuddered." He actually was wracked with emotion. He sobbed and wept and felt deeply the pain. See, our Lord was, by nature, sympathetic because He was God, and God loves His people. God is not willing that any should – what? – perish. God doesn't enjoy the sorrow that He sees in the world. I really believe, if you want to know the heart of God, then look at the emotion of Jesus and see the heart of God. Our Lord, every time he saw a need, was just wracked internally with compassion. You see Him in the garden in John 18. The soldiers come to take him, and twice he says to them, "Whom do you seek?" And they said, "Jesus of Nazareth," twice. And He said, "Then those are your orders." In effect, "Let these men go." He was so compassionate on His disciples that He didn't even give a thought for what He was going into.
In the nineteenth chapter, you see Him on the cross; and He's hanging there with those four great wounds in His body. And if ever there was a moment when He could've thought of Himself, it would've been then; but He looks down at the foot of the cross, and He sees this little lady, his mother Mary. And he knows that He isn't going to be around anymore to care for her; and he knows that Joseph is dead, we assume; and that the brothers and sisters in the family have not yet believed and don't until after the resurrection; and who's going to take care of Mary? That's what's on His heart, and He commits her to John and John to her, and once that's done, He can go ahead and die. What compassion. What compassion. He looked at those people so many times with pain in His heart. He said to them on one occasion, "You will not come to Me, that you might have life." The twenty-third chapter of Matthew in the thirty-seventh verse, one of the most pensive things that ever came out of His mouth. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them who are sent unto thee, how oft would I have gathered thy children together, even like a hen gathering her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!"
In the nineteenth chapter of Luke, it tells us in verse 41 this about Him. "And when He was come near, He beheld the city and wept over it." And I can't imagine the dimensions of weeping that must have come from the heart of God; and He said, "If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day" – if thou hadst known – "the things which belong unto thy peace! But now they're hidden from thine eyes." If you only had known. If you'd only known. When the Bible says He was a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, it means sorrow and grief as God would feel it. And so Matthew uses the strongest word there is for compassion. He was wrenched in His midsection. Oh, how He loved. Oh, how He loved.
Thomas Watson said this, "We may force our Lord to punish us, but we will never have to force Him to love us. That's His nature." This must have been some news to the people of those days. The Greek gods were indifferent. In fact, the Greeks said that the number one attribute of their gods was apatheia, apathy, indifference. The Jews had been taught by the Pharisees that God was an ogre, uncaring, uninterested, and indifferent. Jesus brought a whole new message. Anna Barbauld wrote, "Jesus, the friend of human kind, with strong compassioned moved, descended like a pitying God, to save the souls He loved. And still for erring, guilty man a brother's pity flows; and still His bleeding heart is touched with memory of our woes."
Peter, in 1 Peter 3:8, calls on us to have the same compassion. And I guess if you don't understand what I'm saying, that tells how far removed you are from It. We not only are called to minister, but we're called to minister because we love, because our hearts are broken over those who are lost. That prince of expositors, G. Campbell Morgan, wrote this, "There is no reason in man that God should save. The need is born of God's own compassion. No man has any claim upon God. Why, then, should men be cared for? Why should they not become the prey of the ravening wolf, having wandered from the fold? It has been said that the great work of redemption was the outcome of a passion for the righteousness and holiness of God. That Jesus must come and teach and live and suffer and die, because God is righteous and holy. I do not so read the story. God could've met every demand of His righteousness and every demand of His holiness by handing men over to the doom they had brought upon themselves. But deepest in the being of God, holding in its great energizing might, both holiness and righteousness is His love and compassion. It is out of the love which inspired the wail of the divine heart that salvation has been provided." What moved our Lord? Love. Compassion.
There's a second motive or a second element in His motive. I call it condition – condition. And now we move to the Man, and look what He says in verse 36, "They were faint and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd." He moves from His nature to the need, and He saw them in their real condition. He was not fooled by their religious fronts. He was not fooled by the facade, the superficiality. He said, "These people are desperately in need," and He uses two tremendously rich words. Faint and scattered abroad don't really translate the core of meaning – eskylmenoi and errimmenoi, two tremendous words.
The first one can mean worn out, exhausted. It can mean beaten up, battered, mangled, ripped, torn, skinned alive. They were devastated. They were skinned, mutilated, worn out, exhausted, battered, bruised, beaten. The second word means to be thrown down, lying prostrate, totally helpless, and it's used in the Septuagint version in the Old Testament in Judges 4:22 to speak of a man who was playing dead with a spike driven through his temples. It means they were mangled and devastated, and then thrown on the ground lying prostrate and utterly helpless. That's how He saw them. It was as if they had no shepherd.
You know who claimed to be their shepherds? The scribes and the Pharisees said they were the shepherds of Israel, but that's what their shepherds had done to them. This, my friend, is an indictment of their spiritual leaders. Their spiritual leaders didn't show them any pasture. Their spiritual leaders didn't feed them. Their spiritual leaders didn't bind their wounds. Their spiritual leaders literally mutilated them. They were flayed. They were mangled corpses, plundered by the scribes and the Pharisees, and now they were lying prostrate, devastated. It is a graphic picture of the uncaring, unconcerned leaders; and we see the weariness, the bewilderment, and the wounds that have left these people desolate. It happened because their shepherds never helped them but rather harmed them. They're called again in chapter 10 verse 6, you see, "The lost sheep of the house of Israel," and the phrase literally means the sheep that have perished. Terrible indictment of their leaders. They were offering a religion that didn't lift burdens. It bound burdens on them. They were fooling around with subtle arguments about the law and their traditions. They were utterly indifferent to need. They could have cared less.
In Matthew 23 Jesus says, "You devour widows' houses." "You bind on My people" – 23:4 says – "needless burdens." And in 23:13, Jesus said, "You shut people out of the kingdom." What an indictment. Oh, what an indictment. This was their leaders, their supposed shepherds. Jesus saw that condition. I see that today. People say, "Oh, you know, you shouldn't speak against this situation, shouldn't speak against those other religions. You shouldn't say anything against those other groups." Listen, they are shutting people out of the kingdom of God. They are mangling them and flaying them and mutilating them and leaving them lying prostrate and helpless; and if you don't perceive that, you miss it. You don't see it the way the Lord did.
Can you imagine how wonderful it must have been when they heard Him say this? "Come unto Me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you" – what? – "rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls, for My yoke is easy. My burden is light." That whole little section there, Matthew 11:28-30, plays off of things the Pharisees said. Their yoke was hard, painful, killing, and Jesus said, "Mine is easy." They needed a shepherd, and He longed to shepherd them, to gather them.
There's a fearful passage in the thirty-fourth chapter of Ezekiel. It talks about shepherds who feed themselves instead of their sheep. It talks about shepherds who come with no healing for the wounded sheep. It talks about shepherds who never seek the lost sheep; and then if you go into the eleventh chapter of Zechariah, you'll find that there are shepherds even presented there who eat their sheep and who eat so ferociously their sheep that they pull apart their feet to get every morsel remaining.
The Apostle Paul was concerned about this. So was Jesus. Jesus, in John 10, said, "I am concerned" – in effect – "about those who come into the sheepfold and climb in and are not the true shepherds." And Paul said, "I'm concerned about those who come along and will devour You." And Jesus had already said in chapter 7, "There come along some false shepherds wearing sheep's clothing." It does not mean that they're dressed like sheep. Sheep's clothing is wool, and that was the garment of a shepherd. They are false shepherds and they devour the sheep, and Jesus saw what false teachers and false shepherds do. He had compassion, and He saw that their condition was they needed a shepherd. Someone wrote, "Let me look on the crowd as my Savior did, till my eyes with tears grow dim. Let me view with pity the wandering sheep and love them for the love of Him."
Then He changed the metaphor to give us the third element of His motive, from sheep to a harvest, and I call this consummation. Jesus loved them and cared for them and ministered to them because of His compassion, because of their condition, and because of the coming consummation. Verse 37, "Then saith He unto His disciples, 'The harvest truly is filled up.'" Plenteous – filled full. What does He mean? Some people think the harvest here is the lost. Some people think it's the elect. Some people think it's the seekers after God. Some people think it's the number to be saved. Let's see if we can find out what the harvest is. First of all, it is not the field of John 4. That's a different picture. What is the harvest? Listen as I read to you for a moment, and see if it doesn't become abundantly clear. The words are Isaiah's words in the seventeenth chapter and the tenth and eleventh verses. Just listen. "Because thou has forgotten the God of thy salvation and hast not been mindful of the Rock of thy strength, therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants and shalt set it with a strange slip. In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish; but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow. Woe to the multitude of many people."
The harvest in Isaiah 17 is judgment. Listen to Joel 3 verse 9. "Proclaim this among the nations; prepare war; wake up the mighty men. Let all the men of war draw near; let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, 'I am strong.' Assemble yourselves and come, all ye nations, and gather yourselves together round about. There cause the mighty ones to down, O LORD." God calls the nations to judgment. "Let the nations be wakened and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. For there will I sit to judge all the nations round about. Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, get down; for the press is full; the vats overflow, for their wickedness is great." Then this – "Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision."
Now I believe that when the Lord saw the multitudes, He thought of Joel's harvest, and it's judgment that Joel spoke of. I believe our Lord saw consummation. He saw the eternity perspective. He didn't see people just in their current problem. He saw them as doomed to hell. In Matthew 13, the Lord, giving a parable said this. "Let both grow together" – verse 30 – "until the harvest. And in the time of harvest, I will say to the reapers, 'Gather together first the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them. But gather the wheat into My barn.'" It is judgment, and it is judgment on the multitudes; and some will be barned and some will be burned, but it is judgment.
Verse 39 same chapter. Tells you right here, "The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are the angels." The harvest that He sees is not just a mission field. That isn't the perspective here. The harvest is the final judgment, the consummation, the end of the ages, the time of grief. That's what He sees. You find later on, if you look at the Book of Revelation in the fourteenth chapter and the fourteenth verse, "And I looked and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like the Son of Man, having on his head a golden crown and in his hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, 'Thrust in thy sickle and reap; for the time is come for thee to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.' And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped." Judgment. Judgment.
Listen beloved, Jesus ministered to people because He loved them. He ministered to people because of their terrible condition, and He ministered to people because He could see their ultimate consummation. And if you've lost that vision, you've lost a major portion of your motive. Paul said, "Knowing" – 2 Corinthians 5 – "the terror of the Lord, we persuade men." We understand hell. Romans 12, Paul talked about the vengeance of God. Hebrews, the writer talks about it. "Men will die, and after that, the judgment." In 2 Thessalonians, the Apostle Paul painted such a vivid picture. "In the day when the Lord Jesus is revealed from Heaven with His mighty angels and flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power."
So easy for us to lose the sense of the imminence and inevitability of eternal judgment. There's no way to describe hell. Nothing on earth can compare with it. No living person can really comprehend it. No madman in the wildest flights of insanity ever beheld the borders of hell. No man in delirium's ever pictured a place so utterly terrible. No nightmare racing across a fevered mind ever produced a terror to match that of the mildest hell. No murder scene with splattered blood and mutilated bodies could ever suggest the revulsion that one glimpse of hell could suggest; and our Lord saw that and He was moved to reach out to people. So our Lord saw the crowds. He taught them. He preached to them and He healed them, because of His compassion, their condition, and the ultimate consummation. I hope that speaks to your heart. It sure does to mine.
For just a moment, as we close, may I speak to you of His method? And we'll get into this more in our future study, so I won't take time with it. But what was His method? Well at the end of verse 37, He says, "The laborers are few." In other words, "I can't do it alone. The laborers are few." What is that? That's the first part of His method. I call it insight. He has a threefold method – insight. First you have to understand the problem. What are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about a lost hell-bound world, a world of hurting people who need compassion? What are you going to do about the condition of men and women who are trapped under those false shepherds who feed them lies that damn their souls? What are you going to do?
First you have to have the insight to see that there's a problem, and you don't have enough people. That's insight. How many times in the Bible do you read this? "Watch and pray." Or this? "Be sober. Be vigilant." Or, "Be alert." We've gotta know what's going on. Can you see the signs of the times? Can you see the needs of men? Are you really discerning? Do you look through the religious facades? Can you see past the phonies? Do you know how few real laborers there really are? Like Ezra 8:15, Ezra says, "I viewed the people." Nehemiah twice says, "I viewed the walls." Have you viewed the scene? Do you understand, seeing the need? Insight. God wants His people to see, and so He explains it to the disciples. You see, the harvest is so plenteous. I mean it'll include everybody, but the laborers are so few. Do you understand the problem?
The insight moves to the second element of His method, which I call intercession. Verse 38 doesn't say, "Now panic. Panic." It doesn't say, "Do it yourself, and do it as quick as you can." Doesn't say, "Come up with a great program." It says pray. "Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest" – oh, what a term, the Lord of the harvest. Do you know what an amazing thing? The very God who is the Lord of the harvest, that's a judgment term, the very God who is the judge, is the One we beseech to send the workers to prevent the people from getting to judgment. Marvelous. There's a part of God that demands that judgment, and there's an attribute of God that seeks that no one be there. "Pray," He says, "that the Lord of the harvest will send forth workers" – is what it means – "into His harvest." Before the final consummation, He sees the harvest as all this mass of people moving toward judgment. But before it gets there pray that God will send forth workers. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that amazing that, in such desperation, He doesn't say, "Now, get out of here as fast as you can and do the job." He says, "Stop and pray."
It's like in the book of Acts when the Lord met with them in the upper room. He says, "Now, you stay here and you pray, and you don't go anywhere till the Holy Spirit comes, and then He'll send you out. But for the moment, don't do anything." Pray. And do you notice what you're praying for? Doesn't say, "Pray for the lost." Doesn't say that. It says, "Pray for laborers." You can sit around and say, "Oh, Lord, save my old aunt. Lord, save my husband. Lord, save my neighbor. Oh, Lord, save my neighbor." And you just keep saying to yourself, "Well, they're not getting saved. I'm sure I'm just going to keep praying. I'm going to keep praying."
Then all of a sudden start to pray this way, "Lord, please send someone to reach my neighbor," and just keep praying that for a long time, and pretty soon you're going to say to yourself, "Uh, I think maybe I ought to go." You see, if all you're doing is praying for the person to be saved, you can keep them at arm's length. But as soon as you start praying for the Lord to send the person, you're going to pretty soon feel like maybe you're the person who ought to go, and that leads you from intercession to involvement – verse 1 chapter 10 – and that's exactly what happened. He said, "Now, you disciples pray," and then in verse 1, "When He had called to Him the twelve disciples, He gave them power against unclean spirits to cast them out, heal all manner of sickness, all manner of disease," and so forth, and He sent them. Now, listen to me, the ones who were doing the interceding were the ones who got involved. Right?
What is God's method? First, that we have insight, that we understand, that we understand that people are lost, and there are few to reach them; and then that we begin to pray; and out of our prayers will come our involvement. I'm not so concerned that you all sign on the dotted line. I'm just concerned that you get on your knees. And if you start praying for the lost long enough, I think God will pull you right out into where they are. There's an interesting phrase in verse 38. It says, "He will send forth laborers." Uses a very strong Greek term that means to throw them out, to shove them out, to thrust them forth. Let God do it. Let God send them. So when faced with a need, we don't panic. We pray. And as we pray, we find that maybe we're going to be the ones that are going to do it, as the disciples prayed and found themselves to be the ones who were involved.
Marvelous method. God's people, insight, intercession, involvement. Listen, friends, God has called us to teach His Word, to proclaim His kingdom, to touch peoples' lives, and to be moved to do that, because His love is in us, because we see their condition, and because we understand their consummation. And He's asked us to analyze it, to have insight, to intercede on their behalf by asking God to send forth laborers; and then when the call comes, like Isaiah, "Here am I. Send me."
It's amazing what you can do if you get involved in the Lord's work. One night in the East End of London, a young doctor was turning out the lights of a mission hall in which he was working. He found a ragged little boy hiding in a dark corner. The little boy asked him to please let him stay there, because it was warm in the corner and he could sleep, and it was a nicer place than he always slept. The doctor said no, and he took the homeless little boy to his own room. He fed him. He bathed him. Then he tried to get his story. He learned from the little boy that he was living in a coal bin, and he was living in a coal bin with a number of other little boys. So the doctor asked the little fellow if he'd take him to where the coal bin was so he could see. They went through the narrow alleys of London.
Finally, in the darkness of night, they came to a hole in the wall of an old factory. "Look in there," the little boy said. The doctor struck a match, and he looked inside through the hole and crawled into a filthy coal bin cellar, and he found 13 little boys there, clothed with only bits of old burlap to protect them from the London cold. And one little fella had clinging to him tightly a four-year-old little brother. They were all orphans.
The doctor said that, then and there, he caught a vision of how he could serve the Lord. His name was Dr. Bernardo. The story is true. He cared for those little boys and for little girls. And at the time of his death, the newspapers of London reported that Dr. Bernardo had taken and surrounded with a Christian atmosphere over 80,000 homeless children, and hundreds of them became Christians, because he had the eyes of Christ to see into the darkness and the heart of Christ to draw people into the light. Oh, that we should so minister.
This article is also available and sold as a booklet.


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A Georgia lawmaker is urging federal officials to release rapper 21 Savage after Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials detained him in Atlanta this week.
21 Savage is a UK citizen who entered the United States legally when he was a minor in July 2005 but subsequently failed to depart under the terms of his nonimmigrant visa, ICE spokesman Bryan Cox said. His visa expired in 2006.
The rapper, born She'yaa Bin Abraham-Joseph, is being held without bail based on "incorrect information about prior criminal charges," a lawyer said.
In a letter to ICE , Rep. Hank Johnson, a Democrat who represents Georgia's 4th District, described the rapper as a "remarkable young man ... (who) spends his time giving back to the community."
Johnson said he's a prime candidate for bond based on his own recognizance, a valuable member of the community, and a sole breadwinner for his siblings and children.
"I believe that it would be a serious hardship to She'yaa's family and a loss for our community if he is not allowed bail so that he can be released from prison," he said.
Removal proceedings are ongoing
Abraham-Joseph has been placed into removal proceedings, ICE said. It added that future actions will be determined by the outcome of the case before a federal immigration judge.
Immigration attorney Charles Kuck said the rapper came to the US legally. He took a trip to the United Kingdom in 2005 and returned on an H-4 visa, Kuck said.
In a statement, the attorney said, "like almost two million of his immigrant child peers, (he) was left without immigration status as a young child with no way to fix his immigration status."
Abraham-Joseph's legal status expired in 2006 through "no fault of his own," the attorney said.
The rapper has a U-visa application -- which is available to victims of a crime in the United States -- pending with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, Kuck said.
The visa application was filed in 2017, four years after he was reportedly shot six times during an incident in which his friend died.
He's father to three US citizens
Abraham-Joseph has several relatives in the United States, including three children who are US citizens, and a mother and four siblings who are either lawful permanent residents or US citizens, his lawyer said.
In October 2014, he was convicted in Fulton County on counts of marijuana possession with intent to distribute, possession of a firearm or knife during the commission of certain felonies and manufacturing, delivery, distribution and/or possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute. The rapper's representatives say the conviction was expunged.


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Summary: As a teacher and an award-winning entrepreneur, Ivette Mayo is dedicated to sharing experiences and expertise to the community
Houston, TX – Making a mark in her lifetime and showing others how to do the same is how Ivette Mayo is doing her part to contribute to Women's History Month.
Mayo, President and Chief Creative Officer of Yo Soy I Am, LLC., is an accomplished woman and award-winning entrepreneur who has become an author and highly sought after public speaker. Her goal is to affect society in a positive way through her books, actions, and words.
In accord with the 2017 theme, Honoring Trailblazing Women in Labor and Business, Mayo hopes to inspire women and girls in their endeavors. Her latest book, A 30 Day Guide to Your Power, is meant to guide people toward fulfilling their dreams.
"No matter what you have done, where you are from, or who you are right now, you can always become a better version of YOURSELF," says Ivette.
Mayo's additional achievements to name a few include being featured as a "Disruptive Innovators" in New York Times Best Seller Book "Self-Made: Becoming Empowered, Self-Reliant, and Rich in Every Way by Nely Galán, as a Senior Fellow at the American Leadership Forum in Houston in 2016, as Keynote Speaker, "Mujer Destacada" El Diario La Prensa Event in New York and Houston in 2014 and also being appointed to Public Diplomacy Program on Global Women's Issues with the U.S. State Department in 2012.
Women's History Month is an annual declared month that highlights the contributions of women to events in history and contemporary society. It is celebrated during March in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Growing out of a small-town school event in California, Women's History Month is a celebration of women's contributions to history, culture and society.
Ivette Mayo, President and Chief Creative Officer of Yo Soy I Am, LLC., is an author, speaker, change agent and connector. This dynamic teacher has been helping her clients achieve their success since 2004. Ivette is an award-winning entrepreneur that is always ready to leverage her 25 years of corporate experiences and expertise to link her clients to the skills they need to soar – personally and professionally.
Mayo is also a certified member of the John Maxwell Leadership Team whose high energy style makes her a sought-out speaker at events throughout the world on a variety of topics such as leadership, cultural awareness and to the empowerment of women.
In 2016, Mayo was featured in the New York Times #1 Bestseller "Self Made: Becoming Empowered, Self-Reliant, and Rich in Every Way." In 2012, Mayo was appointed by the U.S. State Department to the Public Diplomat Program with the opportunity to share her expertise with women throughout the globe in the areas of business and entrepreneurship.
Ivette's passion and purpose is to TEACH, to her family and to travel.
To schedule an interview or public speaking engagement with Ivette Mayo, contact her publicist:
Sandy Lawrence
Contact Detail:
Company Name: Perceptive Public Relations
Contact Person: Sandy Lawrence
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Phone No: 2819898892
Address: 13202 Dogwood Blossom Trail
City: Houston
State: Texas
Country: United States
Website Url: www.perceptivepublicrelations.com
Source: www.PRExhibition.com


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As originally posted in the reader-diary section of Firedoglake.com; the post's 2011 comment thread is available at that link.
David Cornwell (British author John le Carré) speaking in a March, 2002 interview:
The Cold War was fought under a constant mystery: How much can we do in defense of a free and decent society and remain a free and decent society that is worth defending? So there was always a very great unease, particularly in the secret world, about the methods with which we protected our virtue, as we saw it.
When you've got a preconception, you can always decorate it with slightly bent intelligence.
On this ninth anniversary of the opening of the notorious American prison camp built on a U.S. Navy Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to hold, and, above all, to interrogate, foreigners claimed to be law of war combatants, I've transcribed below part of a recent interview of an English-speaking detainee – a citizen of Britain – who was transported by cargo plane from Afghanistan to Guantanamo's Camp X-Ray in February, 2002. [His two British companions, Shafiq Rasul and Asif Iqbal – they're collectively known as the "Tipton Three" – were flown to Cuba a month earlier, on January 13, 2002, two days after the prison camp opened nine years ago today, 1/11/11.]
That former detainee is Ruhal Ahmed, and the transcribed portion of his joint interview with Shafiq Rasul (made especially poignant and compelling by the presence of Ahmed's young daughter), which was conducted in East London by British writer Andy Worthington last September 18th – nine years to the day after President Bush signed the never-rescinded Congressional Authorization for Use of Military Force (war) against the perpetrators of 9/11/2001 – may be viewed here (starting about five minutes in; don't miss Shafiq Rasul's account in the first two minutes of the clip).
Interspersed with my transcript of Ahmed's account of his pre-April, 2004 Guantanamo experiences, is my transcription of an exchange that took place in open court in the United States Supreme Court, on April 28, 2004, as two of the justices questioned the appointed representative of the U.S. government at the time, Deputy Solicitor General Paul Clement of the Executive Branch's Department of Justice. Clement was resisting, in the name of the President and Congress and the American people, the efforts of another wartime detainee – U.S./Saudi citizen Yaser Hamdi – to have his claim, of being unlawfully detained as an armed-conflict combatant, heard and adjudicated by a neutral decision-maker in our independent Judicial Branch of government, or elsewhere.
Ruhal Ahmed and his two companions were seized by Northern Alliance forces in northern Afghanistan (where they'd been touring the area prior to attending the wedding of Iqbal in Pakistan, apparently partly in search of "dope," but without even a tangential connection to any armed conflict, if one can prove a negative) in late November, 2001, were soon transferred to the custody of American Special Forces troops in Afghanistan, and then forcibly flown in January and February, 2002 to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they were held, abused, and interrogated, until released to British custody – without explanation, apology, or reparations from the United States President or Congress then or since – in March, 2004.
Ahmed's appallingly-abusive treatment and torture, while in American military custody in Afghanistan and Guantanamo, were detailed at length in a joint public account by the three British friends on July 26, 2004, as part of The Guantánamo Testimonials Project of the University of California at Davis's Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas (CSHRA). That laudable academic project has been voluntarily compiling, during the abdication of Congressional oversight and DOJ enforcement of the law against powerful government actors, the evidence of crimes committed by agents of our federal government, that other members of our government should have been compiling and using to impeach and prosecute, years ago.
Some excerpts from that Guantánamo Testimonials Project written account:
80. During the first several weeks [in Guantanamo] the American interrogations with all three [men] consisted of pressing them to 'just say you're a fighter'. Asif [Iqbal] was told 'if you just say you're a fighter, because of the Geneva Convention when the war is over you'll get sent back to England'. [Ruhal Ahmed] was told 'just say you're a fighter and you'll go home'. He was told 'you've come to kill American and British soldiers, coalition forces'. They talked about 'allied forces'. They referred to the Northern Alliance as being the same as 'allied forces'.
98. The interrogators very rarely introduced themselves. Occasionally they lied about the organizations they worked for and all three men believe the names they gave were almost always false. This misinformation was quite common. As an example, on one occasion [Ruhal Ahmed] told an investigator that one of her colleagues from the FBI had kept him in the interrogation room for 18 hours (this was in Camp Delta). He described the interrogator. The person to whom he was complaining told him that he knew the woman and that she was not from the FBI but from Military Intelligence.
99. In relation to the interrogators, they generally changed. It was very rare to have the same interrogator on a regular basis. Shafiq [Rasul] says 'I only ever saw the same interrogator on three occasions at the most'.
100. The organizations that were involved in the interrogations included the CIA, FBI, DOD, MI5, NCI (Navy Crime Investigators), NSA, Army CID.
[…]Camp Delta – Conditions
124. After Camp X-Ray all three were transferred to Camp Delta about May 2002. The conditions in Camp Delta were more permanent than those in Camp X-Ray. The cells were made out of large shipping containers. The sides at either end had been removed as had the front. Inside each container they had constructed 6 mesh cages. The back wall, the floor and the roof were from the metal container but the side walls and the front were made of mesh. In the back wall there was cut out a square to act as a window, but this also had thick mesh across it.[…]
Interrogations at Camp Delta
170. In relation to the interrogation blocks at Delta, they fell into the following categories: yellow building, brown building, gold building, blue building, grey building and orange building. All the booths either had a miniature camera hidden in them (it was possible to see the cameras in the air vents) or they had one way glass behind which sometimes it was possible to make out other individuals using video cameras. Asif [Iqbal] states that 'during one particular interview with MI5, I remember seeing people behind the MI5 man filming me. Most of the interrogations in Camp 1 were in the brown or the yellow building. After they built Camp 2, most of the routine interrogations took place in the gold building and the brown building was then used for the torture'.[…]
220. After about a week [at one point, a year or more into detention] I [Asif Iqbal] was taken to interrogation [from isolation]. I was taken there by guards from 9/4. These were the Rhode Island, Massachusetts Soldiers. They had a reputation for the worst violence. I remember once General Miller had to investigate them for using excessive force as they had beaten up one man who ended up as a cabbage.
234. After about three months in isolation we were all brought out and moved to Kilo block [as, unknown to them, the time for their release neared]. This was a normal block that was also run by Intel as opposed to the Army. The three of us were placed in this block and we were no longer in isolation, we were allowed to talk to each other [all the cells were bugged].
Like every other Guantanamo prisoner, including the 173 who remain in custody today, after the release or death of the rest of the peak population of almost 800, Ruhal Ahmed was held without benefit of Prisoner of War (POW) status or treatment, despite being denied the Article 5-compliant screening mandated by pre-existing U.S. Army regulation, or any judicial or Congressional review of his detention conditions – which were in clear (and willful) violation of the Third Geneva Convention, and Common Article 3 minimum humane treatment standards (both the law of the land), for more than two years.
The U.S. President and Congress ought to be required to read the Third Geneva Convention (part of our "treaty obligations"), sometime. It requires, in part, for screened and unscreened (default) POWs, that:
Art 13. Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention. In particular, no prisoner of war may be subjected to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are not justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the prisoner concerned and carried out in his interest.
Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.
Measures of reprisal against prisoners of war are prohibited.
Art 14. Prisoners of war are entitled in all circumstances to respect for their persons and their honour.
Art 17. Every prisoner of war, when questioned on the subject, is bound to give only his surname, first names and rank, date of birth, and army, regimental, personal or serial number, or failing this, equivalent information.
No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.
Art 25. Prisoners of war shall be quartered under conditions as favourable as those for the forces of the Detaining Power who are billeted in the same area. The said conditions shall make allowance for the habits and customs of the prisoners and shall in no case be prejudicial to their health.
The foregoing provisions shall apply in particular to the dormitories of prisoners of war as regards both total surface and minimum cubic space, and the general installations, bedding and blankets.
The premises provided for the use of prisoners of war individually or collectively, shall be entirely protected from dampness and adequately heated and lighted, in particular between dusk and lights out. All precautions must be taken against the danger of fire.
Art 48. In the event of transfer, prisoners of war shall be officially advised of their departure and of their new postal address. Such notifications shall be given in time for them to pack their luggage and inform their next of kin.
They shall be allowed to take with them their personal effects, and the correspondence and parcels which have arrived for them. The weight of such baggage may be limited, if the conditions of transfer so require, to what each prisoner can reasonably carry, which shall in no case be more than twenty-five kilograms per head.
Mail and parcels addressed to their former camp shall be forwarded to them without delay.
In April, 2004, the month after Ruhal Ahmed was transferred to British custody from U.S. military custody, after enduring Guantanamo detention conditions so intolerable that months earlier he'd "confessed" to being a part of Al Qaeda and having foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks, Deputy Solicitor General of the United States Paul Clement told the justices of the United States Supreme Court that "the United States is gonna honor its treaty obligations" in the Executive Branch's classified, unsupervised detention of foreign citizens – over whose fates the president and military assert unilateral control during the (still-ongoing) war against those non-uniformed 9/11 terrorists (and their accomplices) who survived the 2001 suicide attacks. Clement further declared to the nine high court justices that the Executive Branch alone can and will "constrain the actions" of government agents, so as to make otherwise-unenforced treaties "binding" and capable of preventing the torture or abuse of helpless presidential prisoners, when it's left unchecked and unsupervised by the other two branches of government.
Judge for yourselves the veracity of our government's word, as asserted in person to the justices of the United States Supreme Court.
Ruhal Ahmed, ISN 110, describing, last September, what he experienced in Guantanamo Bay detention camps before April, 2004:
The frequent flyer program means basically a detainee is picked by his interrogator, simply because maybe he's, they think he's a high profile. What they would do – every fifteen minutes you would move, they would move you from cell to cell, throughout the clock. So, if you should imagine – to move a person, it takes at least twenty minutes – the procedure, to move someone. They need to be shackled, which takes about ten minutes. The door needs to be opened, there have to be three guys who need to escort the person to another cell. Um, it's not like you go, you move from cell one to cell two – you could be from cell one, which is in Alpha Block, to Block B or Block C. So you can just imagine how long it takes for a person to be transported from one place to another. And that would happen every fifteen minutes. So I mean, as soon as you get into your cell, fifteen minutes from that time, you're gonna get moved again, throughout the clock. So just imagine moving, and getting moved again, every fifteen minutes of the day.
You can't sleep, for week upon weeks. Some brothers went through it for months. And eventually you become, you become like a vegetable. You know – you have no control over your head, you know, of your body. You're just, look a zombie, living a zombie… Eventually, you can't, you can't kneel down… Because we had to kneel down to get shackled up, to get prepared to move from cell to cell. But what they do – because you're so tired and so exhausted of being moved and moved to place to place, what they would do is walk into your cell and they'd kind of drag you to the next cell, to the next block. That's the frequent flyer program.
Hamdi Supreme Court Oral Argument on April 28, 2004:
Justice John Paul Stevens [addressing Deputy Solicitor General Paul Clement]: It sounds from your argument that the principal interest that the government wants to advance is the ability to interrogate the person [in Guantanamo or elsewhere] for a sufficient length of time to determine whether they'll get valuable information out of them or not. And to deny him counsel during the period – that period – because he may not be as willing to talk. Now it seems to me there are two things about that I wanted to ask you about: One, have you considered the possibility that perhaps a lawyer would've explained to this man that if you do give some information, you won't have to stay here incommunicado for two or three years; that might be a motivation to talk. That's one possibility.
Ruhal Ahmed, ISN 110, describing, last September, what he experienced in Guantanamo Bay detention camps before April, 2004:
Then you, then you have obviously ah, the – where they would limit your food. If you are in isolation they would limit your proportion of the food. You weren't getting huge amounts of meals, like we get here [referencing his London location], and especially [unintelligible, to the audience with a smile]. But just imagine them getting, you know… What we used to get in a normal, in a normal blocks we'd get… Let me, how should I put this now… Just imagine, you get two pieces of bread, ahm, and probably enough sauce just to wipe that plate clean. That's your meal, you know. And breakfast would be even smaller, you know, and lunch you would get literally nothing. So, you know, just imagine them controlling your meal now. So, you know, you don't even get half of that or a quarter of that, if you're on that program. And on top of that, you're isolated. You know, you're in isolation, you can't speak to nobody. You can't talk, you can't go out your cell. You don't get to go to the showers, for recreation, and so on.
Hamdi Supreme Court Oral Argument on April 28, 2004:
Justice Stevens: And the second thing I wanted to ask you about: Are there any cases in the international field or the law – anywhere – explaining that the interest in detaining a person incommunicado for a long period of time for the purpose of obtaining information from him is a legitimate justification for it? I understand arresting on the battlefield – that's perfectly clear. But is this prolonged detention for that purpose the subject of judicial writing anywhere that you know about?
Deputy U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement: Let me answer both parts of your question, Justice Stevens. […]
Ruhal Ahmed, ISN 110, describing, last September, what he experienced in Guantanamo Bay detention camps before April, 2004:
Basically, in 2003, that's when the condition of the prison got extremely worse, when General [Geoffrey] Miller was put in power. Um, and basically – before that it was not as bad, but when General Miller came in power, when he became the General there, they started introducing short-shackling, hot and cold temperatures, isolation for long periods of time, the frequent flyer program, and so on. So what that means is basically if you're classed as a high-profile person, these things would apply to you, and you would have all these kind of things happening to you. You'd go to interrogation on a daily basis, be short-shackled.
Short-shackled is – I don't know if you guys know what a "three-piece suit" is – it's… If you watch American films, when the prisoner gets arrested, they put handcuffs on him which has a link on the chain that falls to the feet, it's like – they call it a "three-piece suit." And when you walk, you actually shuffle like a penguin. The restriction of the shackle itself is quite tight. The short-shackle – what they do is they put you in a room and there's a hook on the floor. And they uncuff your hands, get a separate pair of cuffs, cuff your hands, make you bend down, and they put that link where the shackles is in that hook, padlock that, force you to bend down, put your hands behind your back, and get a second pair of cuffs and cuff you. Just imagine your hands being cuffed where your ankles are. And that's short-shackling. Which means you can't actually sit flat-footed. So you have – you're constantly on your toes and the ball of your foot. If you go forward, it cuts into your wrists. And if you go backwards, it cuts into your ankles. So you can be in that position for days, sometimes for two, three days. I mean, I went through it for about 2 and a half days, I think Shafiq [Rasul] did the same. But some brothers, especially the Arab brothers, they went through it for a longer period of time. That's short-shackling.
Hamdi Supreme Court Oral Argument on April 28, 2004:
Clement: I think – to get to your second part of the question – I don't know that there are any authorities that I'm aware of that address exactly what you're talking about. But I think there're two types of authority that we would point to as being very important. First of all, it's long been recognized that one of the major justifications for the detention of enemy combatants or prisoners of war is to gather intelligence, and we cite some sources to that effect in the brief. The second thing – and I think this is important – is that it has never been the case that prisoners of war are entitled to counsel to challenge their capture or their detention. What has happened historically, and what the Geneva Convention provides, is that if one of those [Article 5-due-process-deemed… (See Footnote 61 of Hamdan) – pow wow] enemy combatants is charged with a specific war crime, then at that point they are entitled to counsel. But if they are just being held in a preventative detention, then, in that circumstance, they are not entitled to counsel.
Ruhal Ahmed, ISN 110, describing, last September, what he experienced in Guantanamo Bay detention camps before April, 2004:
And then, obviously, if you have to urinate or go – you know, if you need to take a number two – you'd have to urinate on yourself and defecate on yourself. You wasn't allowed to pray. During that period, they would have extremely loud music, they would have strobe lights. And you – just imagine being in that room. It's a very small room, it's a very, you know, confined room. It's only like about two by two, if that. And it's kind of sound proof. So they've got a system in there, and they're playing – you know, most likely it was heavy metal music, with strobe lights. So it's like you were being in a night club, but it's not, you know.
And eventually, after being there for 3, 4 hours, you know – first of all, it's the pain that's killing you. Then afterwards, you know, you try to kind of concentrate on other things to kind of relieve yourself of the pain – think about things. But when the music's on, it's in your ears, constantly, and eventually you can start hearing every instrument that's playing. Every note. At the same time they would come in with dogs and interrogate you – you know, dogs would be right, you know, by your face, barking. Um, and throwing, you know, kicking you, punching you, asking you to sign confessions – you know, you're Al Qaeda, you're this and that. And through – you're just thinking in your head, you're kind of – your mind goes blank.
Hamdi Supreme Court Oral Argument on April 28, 2004:
Justice Stevens: May I ask just one other question – I think it's just relevant… Do you think there's anything in the law that curtails the method of interrogation that may be employed?
Clement: Well, I, I think there is, Justice Stevens, I mean…
Justice Stevens: And what is that?
Clement: Well, I mean, just to give one example – I think that the United States is signatory to conventions that prohibit torture and that sort of thing. So that's – you know, the United States is gonna honor its treaty obligations. The other thing that's worth mentioning, of course…
Ruhal Ahmed, ISN 110, describing, last September, what he experienced in Guantanamo Bay detention camps before April, 2004:
And eventually you start hearing things and seeing things – even when they're gone, you think they're still there. So it kind of takes over your mind. And eventually I think me and Shafs [Rasul] and some other brothers who were subject to these kind of things, we all signed a confession. We, you know, we came to the point – where, you know, we came to the point, because I [had stayed there?] for about five months, as well [the video "evidence"/"confession" was apparently more than a year into his detention – pow wow]. And I said, I said to myself, you know – I'm in Guantanamo, it can't get worse, let me just sign this piece of paper, and let me see what happens. Because if they take me to court, it's better for me – you know, at least I can, I can tell my part of the story, and I'll probably have a lawyer.
Hamdi Supreme Court Oral Argument on April 28, 2004:
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: But you said about, something about self-executing in connection with Geneva Convention. You said well, it's not self-executing. Would you say that – the same thing – about the torture convention?
Clement: Justice Ginsburg, I actually have the sense that, that, that, that the Torture Victim – I mean, you have the Torture Victim Protection Act, of course, which I think doesn't actually apply to the United States, so I'm not sure that there would be any other basis for bringing a private cause of action against the United States. But as this Court noted in Footnote 14 of its Eisentrager opinion, the idea that a treaty is gonna be enforced through means other than a private cause of action doesn't mean that it's not a binding treaty, doesn't mean that it's not gonna constrain the actions of the Executive Branch.
Ruhal Ahmed, ISN 110, describing, last September, what he experienced in Guantanamo Bay detention camps before April, 2004:
So we all went into interrogation, and they had these photos. And there's a video of bin Laden giving a speech, and there's a crowd, just like yourself, just sitting there. And there was Mohammed Atta there. And behind him, apparently, there's three of us – me, Shafiq [Rasul] and Asif [Iqbal]. And there was like – the pictures were a still of a video, so it was very, very poor quality. You couldn't even see the person's face. But simply because, in my interrogation, I said I was wearing an Adidas tracksuit bottom – and this guy had a tracksuit top, just like yourself [pointing to someone in the audience] – and they said, oh, this is you – yeah, I mean… And it was just amazing, and I thought 'okay, yeah, that's me' – I said give me a piece of paper. And we all signed it. We all signed to say we were part of Al Qaeda and we knew about 9/11 and blah, blah, blah. And, Hamdallah, it stopped – all the bad feelings stopped. Which was amazing. And, I thought, why didn't they just say/send that the first day we got there. You know. And after, you know, a few months we was released, which was quite, really strange.
[Note: The referenced bin Laden video was dated either January 8, 2000 (1/8/00) or August 1, 2000 (8/1/00), the U.S. did not know which (and didn't reveal either date to the detainees for some time). There were records in England proving that both Ahmed and Rasul were present in England on both of those dates in 2000, which, with diplomatic efforts for and by the U.K. (Tony Blair) late in 2003, apparently helped lead to the release from Guantanamo of Ahmed, Rasul and Iqbal in March, 2004 – despite their having already "confessed" in writing, weeks or months earlier, to being, among other things, "part of" Al Qaeda, informed about 9/11 planning, and out of England and in the bin Laden speech audience abroad, near 9/11 hijacker Atta, on one or both of those dates in 2000. – pow wow]
Hamdi Supreme Court Oral Argument on April 28, 2004:
Clement: Just to finish up my answer to Justice Stevens's question – I wouldn't want there to be any misunderstanding about this. It's also the judgement of those involved in these processes that the last thing you wanna do is torture somebody or try to do something along those lines. I mean, if there were an artificial – if you did that, you might get information more quickly, but you'd really wonder about the reliability of the information you were getting. The judgement of the people who do this as their responsibility is that the way you get the best information from individuals is that you interrogate them, you try to develop a relationship of trust…
Ruhal Ahmed, ISN 110, describing, last September, what he experienced in Guantanamo Bay detention camps before April, 2004:
But that's why it happens, you know, when you are subject to this kind of treatment, you eventually break, you eventually crack. Some people go to the extreme of, you know, trying to kill themselves. I witnessed many brothers who tried to hang themselves, to cut themselves, with the plates – the plastic spoons and knives, you know, to sharpen them up. Whatever method they tried, they wasn't successful. But obviously two were – two brothers did manage to kill themselves, apparently. But, you know, it's quite hard to believe, 'cause everyone's tightly controlled. It's impossible to kill yourself in Guantanamo. [Beginning of the third video clip, available for viewing here; Rasul describes seeing and talking to Omar Khadr in Guantanamo later in this clip.] But nevertheless people do try – brothers do try and especially the brothers who have families. Not the ones who are single. It's usually the ones who are married, who had kids, who had more of a responsibility, unlike myself, at that point.
That's what, eventually, you think about. I'm not going to say here, myself and I'm sure Shaf [Rasul] – we've considered to kill ourselves, because it's the position that they put you in, and the stress you go through. Not having your family there, you know, not being able to talk to your mum, your father, your brothers, your sisters. Not being allowed to have a letter – like Shaf [Rasul] said, my mother sent me a letter which my sister wrote, and the first line was "How are you, son?" At the end – it was all, the middle was all crossed out – at the bottom "I love you, Mum." I mean, how much hope do you get from a letter? And there's no hope, and you think of, you think of killing yourself. That's what happens. Hamdallah, you know, most brothers would help you, you know, talk to you and say, that's not the right thing to do, have patience, until that patience comes through.
As Lynn Parramore recently noted about just one aspect of what Ruhal Ahmed and hundreds of others endured and continue to endure in Guantanamo's prison camps, in her important and timely New Year's Eve post "Tortured Until Proven Guilty," focusing on the months-long abusive military confinement of American Bradley Manning, in advance of his trial in the regular Executive Branch-operated, UCMJ-governed military justice system (a military justice system that Congress and the President deliberately undermined, by carving out exceptions to prevent its application to the small minority of Guantanamo detainees formally accused of committing war crimes):
Charles Dickens had a keen interest in prison conditions, having witnessed his father's detention in a Victorian debtor's prison. When he heard about the latest American innovation in housing convicts, he came to see for himself. At Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary, the wretches he found in solitary confinement were barely human specters who picked their flesh raw and stared blankly at walls. His on-the-spot conclusion: Solitary confinement is torture. Dickens wrote:
I believe that very few men are capable of estimating the immense amount of torture and agony which this dreadful punishment, prolonged for years, inflicts upon the sufferers…I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain, to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body: and because its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye and sense of touch as scars upon the flesh; because its wounds are not upon the surface, and it extorts few cries that human ears can hear; therefore I the more denounce it, as a secret punishment which slumbering humanity is not roused up to stay.
A man who had seen his share of inhumanities, Dickens pronounced solitary confinement to be "rigid, strict, and hopeless…cruel and wrong."
That was 1842. Since then, piles of scientific studies, along with the vivid accounts of victims, have confirmed what was obvious to Dickens.
The placement of human beings in solitary confinement is not a measure of their depravity. It is a measure of our own.