In Dallas, if you are looking for a watering hole with an extensive beer selection, including several drafts, follow the arrow that says Deep Ellum. Or search for the familiar name, Malcolm X Blvd. Not so familiar to many will be Cesar Chavez Blvd. Either way, these will get you to a conglomeration of activities bustling with nightlife, hotspots for live music, cool bars, and casual eateries.

Get there early, say before 8 p.m. Otherwise, parking spots will be absent though the streets are pedestrian-friendly these days, with increased police presence, making foot traffic exciting.

Main, Elm and Commerce streets run parallel downtown Dallas into Deep Ellum Dallas, the Mecca for the arts. Radiator Alley carves a path to any of the roads to bring you to the vibrancy of Dallas’ cultures, art, and music.

Expect to hear blaring bass as you walk the streets. Enter any of the clubs, and you will see bodies tangled together on the dance floor and packed with people like sardines. You might even sometimes press and rub against sweaty bodies as you make your way to the bartender.

Outside, there are patios and rooftop bars if you prefer to air out and chill to some soft music, reflect on the calm and beauty of Dallas’ skyline, with some appeal of bold colors provided by plenty of murals on the sides of buildings by artists for added ambiance.

That was before Covid-19.

Now, the buzzword is masking, and in Deep Ellum, that’s not just for people, but businesses are mostly masked with boards to prevent rioters from glass-breaking.

As managers, waiters, bartenders, and musicians work no more, artists went to work on the boarded-up buildings with murals.
Not to overwork the adage, “a picture paints a thousand words,”
put your hands together for Deep Ellum Dallas today!

PS:Please read about Cesar Chavez.

A book Review

We live in a time replete with unprecedented human sufferings. To not have had None Government Organizations (NGOs), relief organizations such as the Red Cross or other representatives of global disasters is impossible to fathom. 

The Routledge Companion to Media and Humanitarian Action approaches the relationship between the media and challenges humanitarian organizations face in our time, in-depth.

Contributors include media professionals and experts from around the world, experienced in delivering humanitarian aid supply. They provide enough fodder to feed the hungry mind, longing for enough context and background knowledge of aid workers.

It tells using case studies and content analysis, challenges faced by representatives of humanitarian emergencies. There are negative consequences of humanitarian intervention, it shows. 

How strategic communications are designed and implemented in the field of humanitarian action are exhausted.

“An excellent book – well documented,” exclaimed a reviewer who believes the authors’ arguments bolstered by other writers have exposed the corrupt, hypocritical, self-serving aid industry and cynical collaboration with Kleptocrats and dictators of the world’s vampire states. 

Another reviewer called it “a great book from authors who have hands-on experience in humanitarian aid.”

Delivering humanitarian aid is a dangerous enterprise as it involves working with corrupt governments and rebels sometimes. “It is hard to avoid working with people who have blood on their hands even if the effort is to help innocent victims,” the reviewer wrote.

The authors state that “crisis communication is now intimately connected to the international humanitarian community – global public first responders and all who sustained humanitarian assistance during complex emergencies and their aftermath.”

They tell of how ” as the ground seems to shift beneath the people and communities affected by disasters – either human, natural, environmental or conflict generated – a newly emergent 24/7 media landscape reports, disseminates and ultimately reports new human suffering worldwide.”

Without question, since the end of the second world war, response to global crises have been swift as the intensity has magnified. These and more show the unprecedented nature of the exercise undertaken by the international aid workers who have erased all geographical boundaries during complex emergencies and their aftermath.

Anderson PhD., is professor and director of graduate studies in the department of communications and media studies at Fordham University. She also directs the peace and justice program.

De Silva is the director at the Institute of strategic studies and democracy, Malta. He was previously the senior adviser at one of the United Nations’ global divisions.

This text was a whopping $240 but could be yours now for $55. It has a considerable number of contributors, each with appropriate academic and professional qualifications. Little wonder the authors, if editors ensured that each has a write up at the end. They are referred to as contributors.

The introduction which is one of the few sections written by the authors narrates the power of the media in times of humanitarian crisis punctuating it with global challenges, constraints and consequences.

The price of the book was steep when I first read it. I recommend it to anyone who has a heart and has intentions of getting involved in helping solve the world’s calamities or merely cares enough to know what it takes to engage in the exercise of providing disaster relief.

In August of 2017, my curiosity got the best part of me after Texas Senate Bill 4 (or Texas SB 4), a bill that effectively bans sanctuary cities in Texas. Filed on November 15, 2016, and discussed during the regular session of the eighty-fifth Texas Legislature, Governor Greg Abbott signed it into law on May 7, 2017.

Upon appeal, the 5th circuit court of appeals unblocked most of the law, allowing SB 4 to go into effect.

The sun had peeked out of the horizon long enough to have its brilliant rays beat down on my car with precision reliable to put my air conditioner on full blast on my way to a church, off Kings Row in Denton, Texas.

The temperature was north of 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and the thermometer in the car clocked it to be 102, that Sunday afternoon.

It was 2 p.m., the doors to the church had opened for the 2.30 p.m. service. The congregation, predominantly Spanish speaking, started trickling in a space that could hold a little over 200 worshipers.

Earlier, there was a service at the same location for a different denomination.

Mission Templo Bethel AD headed by Sofia Piaz shares the facility. I secured a seat next to Armando, who, without asking, kept me abreast of the service with his translation in English. “I do not speak English well, but I will try my best to explain what is said to you,” he assured me.

With efforts by the Trump administration beefed up to enforce immigration laws to rid the country of undocumented immigrants, Texas passed SB 4 banning Sanctuary cities.

The law asks that other law enforcement authorities check persons they encounter deemed foreign to verify their immigration status. If there was any apprehension about my conspicuous presence, it was not out of place but well-founded.

Armando had to ease himself, so he headed to the restroom. Sofia, the pastor, occupied the spot he vacated and continued interpreting the sermon. I then asked her what she felt about the new immigration enforcement.

“We have been passing on the necessary information to help our group. I had the chief of Denton police come here one afternoon to talk to my team. The enforcement does not start till September,” she said.

“The chief promised to enforce the law, but his officers will not be out there chasing or profiling just anyone,” she went on.

It is now illegal for any city or organization such as churches, traditional places known to the public for rendering help to immigrants, to harbor anyone without proper residential papers. The law requires local governing bodies, sheriffs, and campus police to help identify undocumented immigrants.

Children as young as 12 are sometimes afraid to leave home for school for fear that upon their return, one or both of their parents would have been apprehended by immigration authorities. Door knocks are unanswered while curtains and blinds are all pulled down in some homes.

There was no cause for optimism as the church was half empty, perhaps a testament to the fact that those without the required identification dare not venture outside of their homes even to go to church.

Walking out of courtrooms in other cities, immigration and custom enforcement officials have emerged from hallway benches, rushed towards suspects and effected arrests.

Could this be the reason why Sofia’s church was not at its capacity that afternoon? I put this question to her, to which she said, she is doing her best to make sure her congregation understands the law.

Denton is about three dozen miles from Dallas, but like many others, because Texas shares a border with Mexico, Hispanics form about 19 percent of its population.

The service was excellent with mostly singing, accompanied by a band, interrupted when it was time for the guest pastor from Florida, the reverend Ector Cortez, to preach. The sermon was on how Moses led the exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt, across the Red Sea.

Most police departments across the country have expressed the need to stay away from immigration law enforcement not to ruin any trust between the community and them in their bid to investigate and solve crimes.

PS: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/america-nation-of-immigrants

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