Category Archives: Freedom

One of the few points that can be made universally about the state of freedom on the Fourth of July is that Americans possess divergent views on the issue outlooks that are colored by worldviews, political leanings and factors as plain as age.

CHRIS PEDOTA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Edwin Gonzalez, 2, portraying George Washington, and his sister Giuliana, 5, playing Betsy Ross, in Ridgefield Parks Baby and Youth Parade. They won an award as most patriotic.

It can also be said that its relatively easy to find people at least in North Jersey who are willing to openly share their views on a principle that is both revered and controversial.

Freedom was on the brain at dozens of events marking 236 years of American independence across Bergen and Passaic counties, including celebrations in Teaneck, Allendale, Little Falls, Ringwood, Hackensack and Ridgefield Park.

While watching a parade in Ridgefield Park on Wednesday, village resident Chris Cajas, 31, measured the amount of liberty that he is afforded against the limited number of rights held by millions of others living under repressive regimes.

The fight for freedom and democracy thats celebrated on Independence Day has been echoed in the drumbeat of stories coming out of Syria and Egypt.

I think with the struggles in the economy and abroad, I feel more free and more appreciative of the real meaning of freedom, Cajas said.

Iram Valentin, 35, of Hackensack measures freedom in bandwidth and credits the Internet for fostering a rise in self-expression.

How you can express yourself and what you can say has increased because of social media, Valentin said. It used to be that you had to be rich to own Encyclopedia Britannica, but now anyone can get onto the Internet and get information.

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Freedom on display as North Jersey celebrates Independence Day

David Nyuol Vincent: 'While most of Australia is overwhelmingly not racist, there are certain elements of racism in the community. And it's enough to make you feel sometimes like this isn't your home.'

David Nyuol Vincent survived a childhood in war-torn Sudan and 17 years in a refugee camp. Now he continues the struggle for peace as an Australian.

DAVID Vincent was eight when he and his father fled Sudan. Over most of two decades, he endured training as a child soldier for the Sudan People's Liberation Army, bomb raids, starvation, land mines and cholera. He came to Australia, aged 26, in 2004. Vincent settled in quickly, gained a degree in political science and criminology from Melbourne University, and became a community leader.

In this extract from his memoirs, published to mark the first anniversary of independence for South Sudan, he reflects on life in Australia.

IN SEPTEMBER 2007, Sudanese teenager Liep Gony was bashed to death in Noble Park. Twenty-four-year-old Clinton Rintoull pleaded guilty to murder and is serving 20 years in jail. Throughout that year, stories had appeared in the media about so-called Sudanese gangs being violent and anti-social and causing trouble. It is true that some Sudanese kids get intoxicated with alcohol, get into fights and can be disengaged. But this can be said about youth of all ethnic backgrounds.

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Mostly they were just kids hanging out in groups. When people saw them together, they made the assumption that they were a gang. I could be hanging out with my soccer boys in a peaceful gathering, but someone would see 20 black men together and conclude that we're a gang.

Liep was not a troublemaker; he loved playing basketball and hanging out with his friends. His funeral reinforced the senselessness of a teenage boy's life lost. A boy who had escaped the horrors of war-ravaged Sudan and come to a country that was meant to value freedom and security - only to die a brutal death.

In the camp in Africa and as a child soldier, I had buried my own friends over the years without shedding a tear. But that day I cried for Liep. And for the first time since I had arrived in Australia, I wished that I was back in Kakuma, the refugee camp in Kenya. I felt that I hated Australia the way I had been taught to hate the northern Sudanese.

I thought I had seen everything in Africa. I thought I was now incapable of being shocked by anything. But Liep's death shocked me. Violent death was normal in Africa. I struggled to comprehend how this could happen in Australia.

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Freedom fighter's new frontier

Posted at: 07/04/2012 1:56 PM By: KOB.com staff

Vendors at Balloon Fiesta Park are hard at work with only a few hours left until Freedom Fourth gets underway.

And despite hints that it might rain - organizers say the show will go on - rain or shine.

The city of Albuquerque says Freedom Fourth is a family-friendly event that will start at 4 p.m. and culminate in a fireworks display right after dusk.

Supervisor Bree Ortiz says gates will open at 3 p.m. and people should expect to see everything from a car show to a beer garden to a kid's playland - and of course, lots of yummy food.

"We do funnel cakes. we've been around forever," said Rich Lamb of Funnel Cake of New Mexico. "We make them fresh. if there's a hundred people in line, each person in line will get a fresh funnel cake."

The main music stage will first feature local talent - and then Grammy-winnning country group Diamond Rio.

And finally, the sky will become the stage as the fireworks show will take place around 9:15 p.m.

The city says it's made sure that there's not another small fire like the one that happened during the display last year.

"There's a thousand foot radius to make sure that the fireworks are safe,'" said Ortiz.

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Freedom Fourth is set to launch, rain or shine

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CORPUS CHRISTI A fight over freedom has landed in one Corpus Christi woman's front yard this Fourth of July.

Elizabeth Pavich spreads the message of freedom each July by decorating her lawn in The Lakes neighborhood with American flags, pinwheels, a 6-foot-tall inflatable Uncle Sam as well as red, white and blue spotlights.

In October, she decorates with witches and ghosts. In December, it's Christmas lights. At Easter, it's bunnies and eggs in baskets.

But some neighbors don't like her year-round showy displays for nearly every holiday and want her to tone it down.

Eight years ago, Pavich was passed the decorating tradition from her mother after she died. She said when her mother decorated her home for the holiday, the neighborhood families would frequently stop by and admire it. Pavich said she now tries to do the same for her neighbors on Pontchartrain Drive.

Jeffrey Cannon respects his next door neighbor's right to express herself but feels that Pavich's decorations are overdone and nonstop. Once one holiday ends, she starts decorating for the next, he said.

"It doesn't go with the neighborhood," he said. "It definitely hurts our property value."

The Lakes is a gated community with a swimming pool, tennis court and five private, man-made lakes. The homeowner's association requires residents to maintain their lawns and regulates landscaping.

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Freedom rings? Neighbors want one Corpus Christi resident to tone down year-round decorations

CORPUS CHRISTI Family and freedom can be a perfect mix on the Fourth of July.

It's found in backyard barbecues, festive parades and poppin' fireworks displays.

Family tends to bring out a deeper meaning to the day, a group of eight children from the Boys & Girls Club of Corpus Christi said.

"You get to celebrate with your family," said Jordan Ramos, 8. "You get to see your uncle that you never see."

Jordan also may see his parents who live in Dallas today.

He said he loves America because it gives him the freedom to travel places and to play football and to hit baseballs at a batting range.

In addition to family, the children said the day usually means savoring some good eats, such as barbecue ribs, menudo and sausage.

But it also allows for reflection on what the day means independence.

"We are free, and we get to do whatever we want," said Chloe Rodriguez, 9.

"Well, not whatever," her friend, Selena Willis, chimed in.

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Fourth of July brings together family, freedom for Corpus Christi youths

On Jan. 18 of this year, the Internet went dark. In protest against overreaching copyright legislation that endangered the open architecture of the Internet, online services like Wikipedia and Reddit, along with 115,000 other websites, participated in an Internet-wide "blackout" to educate Internet users about the threat to net freedom. Thanks to the joint efforts of free speech advocates, online innovators and everyday Internet users, Congressional offices were flooded with calls and emails, and within days, the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) were shelved in response to the massive online uprising.

Now, half a year later, many of the people and organizations that helped make that Jan. 18 protest a success including my own, the Center for Democracy & Technology are ready to try something different. We're ready to move from defense to offense; ready to support something, rather than just oppose something; ready to transform that powerful moment, where Internet users rose up as one to oppose online censorship, into a lasting movement for Internet freedom. We're ready to try and harness the energy of January's tsunami of online activism, a shock wave whose effects continue to be seen in the privacy debate over cybersecurity legislation in the U.S. and the protests over the ACTA treaty in Europe.

That's why this July 4, instead of blacking out the Internet, we wanted to shine a light and share a positive vision of the Internet and its future, and beta-test a set of principles that can help serve as a rallying cry for Internet freedom fighters both in America and across the globe principles that are broad and universal enough to speak to all political persuasions yet specific enough to serve as a benchmark against which future Internet legislation can be judged and around which future Internet movements can organize.

We're proud to be publishing those principles today in the form of A Declaration of Internet Freedom, joined by a diverse group of Internet innovators and advocates drawn from the loose but wide-ranging alliance that defeated SOPA and PIPA, including companies like Mozilla, individuals like Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, and advocacy and activist groups like Free Press, Public Knowledge, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Fight for the Future.

We are publishing our declaration on Independence Day to echo the American founding fathers' publication of the Declaration of Independence, though we believe these values can and should apply globally as befits a global network. And what we declare, simply, is that:

We stand for a free and open Internet.

We support transparent and participatory processes for making Internet policy and the establishment of five basic principles:

Expression: Don't censor the Internet.

Access: Promote universal access to fast and affordable networks.

Openness: Keep the Internet an open network where everyone is free to connect, communicate, write, read, watch, speak, listen, learn, create and innovate.

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A Declaration of Internet Freedom

PROVO -- With the Freedom Festival in full swing, part of Provo's Center Street has been closed to traffic to host the annual Freedom Days. With roughly 100 vendor booths, carnival rides and live music, the street festival is set to provide endless entertainment for visitors from all around.

Food vendors offer a plethora of dining options while booths sell goods including sunglasses, local art, jewelry, tie-dye clothing and much more. Jerry Foote and his wife Cindy drove up from Kanab with their pioneer-wagon style booth to sell J.C.'s Chuck Wagon Soda, offering six flavors of refreshing drinks.

"On the first two days, it's about normal like you're seeing now," said Jerry Foote. "On the Fourth of July, you can't even get yourself on the walkways, there's so many people. It's a lot of fun."

Skylar and Heather Thomas of American Fork came down Monday evening with their six children to enjoy the festival.

"It's a great family event, everyone here is always in a great mood," said Heather Thomas as the family sat down to enjoy some snow cones. "There's just a lot of great things here to take in, and for the kids it helps the holiday have some meat to it, so that it's not just all about barbecues."

Freedom Days continues Tuesday from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Wednesday from 10 a.m. until 8 p.m.

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Freedom Days in full swing in downtown Provo

Internet advocates announced the Declaration of Internet Freedom on July 2, 2012.

Activist groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Free Press and Access Now banned together and announced Monday the writing of the Declaration of Internet Freedom. The organizations say the document is "a set of principles providing a positive vision to preserve the Internet as a platform for speech, innovation and creativity."

SOPA, PIPA today: Internet on strike! SOPA opera: the Internet dukes it out with Congress SOPA and PIPA Internet blackout aftermath, staggering numbers

Organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International and Mozilla have all pledged their support for the declaration.

The full text of the Declaration of Internet Freedom reads:

PREAMBLE

We believe that a free and open Internet can bring about a better world. To keep the Internet free and open, we call on communities, industries and countries to recognize these principles. We believe that they will help to bring about more creativity, more innovation and more open societies.

We are joining an international movement to defend our freedoms because we believe that they are worth fighting for.

Let's discuss these principles - agree or disagree with them, debate them, translate them, make them your own and broaden the discussion with your community - as only the Internet can make possible.

Join us in keeping the Internet free and open.

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Internet activists draft Declaration of Internet Freedom

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., July 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Swedish Skin Care's RAZOR BURN FREEDOM for Women won in its category at the prestigious Independent Cosmetic Manufacturers & Distributors (ICMAD) seventh annual Cosmetic Innovators of the Year (CITY) Awards. The award was announced at the ICMAD CITY Awards Ceremony in New York on June 20.

Swedish Skin Care's Razor Burn Freedom for Women was one of 15 entries under the Members' Choice: Bath, Body & Hair category. A panel of industry experts voted on beauty brands in 14 categories based on innovative products, packaging, and advertising/marketing concepts from 2011. http://www.icmad.org/innovators/index.asp?cid=19

"We are elated to receive this validation," explained Swedish Skin Care CEO Bengt Johansson. "We created Razor Burn Freedom for Women because nothing else on the market effectively helped women with post hair-removal skin symptoms, such as razor burn, ingrown hair and skin irritation. All of our research and testing was worth it. Users and industry experts agree - it works."

"This product is amazing! I have never seen anything like it in my 30+ years in the beauty industry," explained Jazz Moreno, beauty products distributor and owner of JAZZ-Z Beauty Products.

"This Awards program showcases the growth that cosmetic and personal care products have made over the years," stated Pam Busiek, ICMAD president and CEO. "Innovative products such as Swedish Skin Care's Razor Burn Freedom provide the public with the quality and choice they deserve."

About RAZOR BURN FREEDOM for Women Doctor developed in Sweden, this patented, triple-action formula is (the company believes) the first treatment of its kind formulated exclusively for women and their specific post hair-removal skin needs. The product is not limited to razor burn symptoms. Formulated without paraben and fragrances, it produces great results after waxing, electrolysis, threading, tweezing, and laser hair removal.

Razor Burn Freedom for Women is offered in a 3.38 fl oz /100 ml pump spray bottle for $30. This and Swedish Skin Care's other products are available at http://www.SwedishSkinCare.com and include a 60-day satisfaction guarantee. info@SwedishSkinCare.com, 888.658.7546 (SKIN).

Swedish Skin Care also offers products for anti aging and dry skin.

Media contact: Jason Sherman, http://www.shermancm.com, Public Relations Firm, 888.658.7546

This press release was issued through 24-7PressRelease.com. For further information, visit http://www.24-7pressrelease.com.

Excerpt from:
Swedish Skin Care's Razor Burn Freedom for Women Wins Members' Choice Award at ICMAD's 2012 CITY Awards

What has Mohamed Nazri Tan Sri Abdul Aziz got to say about this? Nazri, can we hear from you, please? You are a product of MCKK. As an Old Boy of MCKK you are supposed to be liberal and a defender of free speech. Are you going to keep quiet and allow your Umno brethren to whack Jalil and demand his resignation/sacking? This is your opportunity to prove that a MCKK education has not been wasted on you, Nazri.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

The pro-Umno website, The Unspinners, published this article today:

Ketua Pengarang NST/BH patut letak jawatan!

Ketua Pengarang Kumpulan NST/BH, Dato Jalil Abdul Hamid telah sabotaj persediaan pilihanraya Perdana Menteri merangkap Pengerusi BN dan Presiden UMNO, Dato Seri Najib Tun Abdul Razak dan sepatutnya dipecat di atas pengkhianatan ini.

Sabotaj ini dilakukan dengan melaporkan kenyataan bekas Ketua Pengarah Perkhidmatan Awam (KPPA) Dato Abu Bakar Abdullah seolah beliau dianiaya dipecat dari jawatan dan membantu menimbulkan salahfaham dan keresahan dikalangan kakitangan awam.

READ MORE HERE: http://theunspinners.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/ketua-pengarang-nstbh-patut-letak.html

Jalil Abdul Hamid, the Chief Editor of NST, the Umno-owned mainstream newspaper, was the chap who interviewed me just before New Years Day of 2012. The interview, which was published on 1st January 2012, attracted quite a bit of controversy, as expected, just like my TV3 interview did about a year earlier.

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Freedom to agree with me