Hasta La Gadget!

The Tramp, The Immigrant, the comedian, the actor, the writer, the musician, the composer, the director, the husband, the father, the genius.

The legendary Charles Chaplin (Abu-Fadil)

Charlie Chaplin was that and more.

It’s only fitting that the museum celebrating his life and work that opened in April 2016 provide visitors with a rich experience at his former manor and estate in Corsier-sur-Vevey in Switzerland.

Map of Chaplin’s Swiss residence (Abu-Fadil)

“With such happiness, I sometimes sit out on our terrace at sunset and look over a vast green lawn to the lake in the distance, and beyond the lake to the reassuring mountains, and in this mood think of nothing but enjoy their magnificent serenity.” Charlie Chaplin, My Autobiography 1954.

Chaplin mansion-cum-museum (Abu-Fadil)

The mansion (a/k/a Manoir de Ban) to which Chaplin, wife Oona and their eight children moved – after being banned from re-entry to the United States on charges of being a communist and where he’d lived for decades – underwent a facelift to become a museum surrounded by carefully manicured lawns, a farmhouse, and a newer mock-up of a Hollywood studio.

Charlie Chaplin statue on Vevey corniche by
Lac Léman (Abu-Fadil)

It’s all perched atop a hill overlooking Lake Geneva (Lac Léman) with a backdrop of the Alps, and well worth the 23 Swiss Francs ($23.51) entry ticket.

Chaplin library coffee table (Abu-Fadil)

It’s not yet on the Swiss Travel Pass combo that includes countrywide trains, buses, boats and museums.

Clippings and videos on screen of Chaplin’s life (Abu-Fadil)

But it took five years to put together, preceded by another seven to secure the needed permit. Neighbors had worried the estate would turn into a tacky three-ring circus.

“A Countess From Hong Kong” score on Chaplin’s piano (Abu-Fadil)

The tasteful experience transports visitors to a world of art, entertainment, history, politics, filmmaking, and personal touches.

Café-restaurant (left) and studio (right) at “Chaplin’s World” (Abu-Fadil)

The house is filled with family pictures, memorabilia, scripts, music scores, magazines featuring the star, furniture, newspaper clippings, wax figures of Chaplin, Oona, and others whose paths he crossed, created by the Paris Grévin wax museum artists, as well as steamer trunks in a room chronicling his worldwide travels.

Picture of Charlie and Oona Chaplin (Abu-Fadil)

In one room there’s a photo gallery of famous figures he knew. He paid special tribute to world-renowned scientist Albert Einstein.

I will try and give you an impression of this great man. The eyes have a look as though they see clearly the simplicity of all things. The brow wears no furrows. One feels that all the superficial entanglements of thought that obscure our vision have been swept aside by him, and that he sees only the fundamentals

Chaplin on Albert Einstein (Abu-Fadil)

Every room has at least one screen projecting videos of home movies, clips from his professional films, and more.

The studio is chock full of interactive multimedia installations recreating scenes from Chaplin’s films, countless reels of movies, film strips, scripts, editing machines, and awards he received for his achievements in the movie industry.

Countless film reels and scripts (Abu-Fadil)

Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in London in 1889 and began his career as a comedian with a troupe that later toured the U.S. from 1910 to 1912. He returned to America, began his quick rise to fame in films and established a loyal fan base.

He traveled extensively in the following two decades and realized his growing popularity, later declaring: “I am a citizen of the world.”

Room chronicling Chaplin’s worldwide travels (Abu-Fadil)

But with fame came infamy, triggered by an FBI witch-hunt, several lawsuits, attacks in the media and boycotts of his films which detractors saw as vehicles to promote anti-American and pro-“Red” ideas in a charged xenophobic, conspiracy-minded environment egged on by the likes of communist-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Noted figures in Chaplin’s life (Abu-Fadil)

Chaplin fervently denied the charges.

In one movie sequence the actor is seen asking a school lad engrossed in a book what he had been reading. The boy said Karl Marx, to which Chaplin’s character asked if the boy was a communist.

When reading Karl Marx is a liability (Abu-Fadil)

The boy’s retort: “Must one be a communist to read Karl Marx?”

Chaplin had lived in the U.S. for about 40 years but remained a British citizen. As he sailed with his family from New York to attend the premiere of his film Limelight in London, he got word he’d become persona non grata amid fears of Soviet penetration in America.

Scene from “The Immigrant” (Abu-Fadil)

A Norwalk, Ohio newspaper headlined on September 20, 1952: “Charlie Chaplin Barred from U.S.”

The estate’s studio is fascinating for movie buffs.

Scene from “The Great Dictator” (Abu-Fadil)

After viewing a brief documentary on Chaplin in a theater, visitors walk behind the lifting movie screen into a replica of a street, through a 360-degree circus-like hall, along a corridor with statues of comedians Laurel and Hardy, pop star Michael Jackson, pictures, posters of his films, and videos, then down a steep staircase to a mock Hollywood studio with scenes from different movies.

Oscars, a testament to Chaplin’s talent and genius (Abu-Fadil)

A plaque says Jackson idolized Chaplin: “[He] was everything that I want to be – songwriter, dancer, director, producer.” Jackson dressed as The Tramp for a photo shoot on one of the London streets where Chaplin had lived, visited Oona, and later the families of Michael and Eugene Chaplin, in Corsier. In 1995, he recorded his favorite Chaplin song Smile for the HIStory album. Many say that Chaplin’s dance during the “Nonsense” song at the end of Modern Times was one of the inspirations for Jackson’s Moonwalk.

Queen Elizabeth II knights Chaplin in 1975 (Abu-Fadil)

The anti-war Chaplin was given an award by the World Peace Council in 1965, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1975, and honored with Oscars and the Lion d’Or of the Venice Film Festival.

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Contrary to the common refrain of “it gets better,” a new reportfinds that the unique challenges facing LGBTQ and gender-nonconforming youth actually make them more susceptible to engagement with our justice system when compared to their straight, cisgender peers, particularly among queer and trans youth of color.

Twenty percent of young people in the American juvenile andcriminal justice systems identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or gender-nonconforming, according to a report co-authored by the Movement Advancement Project (MAP) and the Center for American Progress (CAP). Eighty-five percent of those young people are also people of color. This figure is troubling, and disproportionate to the 7–9% of young people who identify as LGBTQ or GNC in the general population.

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While Facebook’s purchase of WhatsApp in 2014 was met with concerns over individuals’ privacy, the social network has done a good job since then of leaving the messaging as is and keeping it independent. That all changed last week when WhatsApp’s new terms-of-service stated that user data would now be shared with Facebook. Unsurprisingly, this has caused outrage, and now … Continue reading

Huawei is no stranger when it comes to introducing new smartphones, and they happen to be the third largest smartphone manufacturer in the world today. In fact, their past releases such as the Huawei Mate S have been impressive to say the least, and this time around, the Chinese brand intends to grace the shores of the US yet again with the all new Huawei Honor 8. This would be its first flagship model that will hit the US market, where it delivers a powerful monochrome and color dual-lens camera, in addition to a unique light-reflecting glass design and of course, something that all road warriors can appreciate — a long-lasting battery.

This Android-powered smartphone will come with a powerful 12MP dual-lens camera that would be like eyes focused on the world around you. With one RGB and one monochrome sensor, the Honor 8 is able to capture more light in order to deliver amazing picture quality, vivid color, and stunning details — regardless of whether it is in broad daylight or nighttime. The benefit of the RGB sensors would include vivid, crisper color, whereas the monochrome sensor reproduces sharper pictures in more detail.

With a hybrid auto-focus that captures every moment by taking advantage of laser, contrast, and depth focus, one can enjoy greater speed and accuracy. There are also exciting new photography modes thrown into the mix in addition to manual operation capability that would make the Honor 8 perfect for aspiring photographers. Not only that, selfie lovers will definitely appreciate the 8MP wide-angle front-facing camera that would be decent enough even in low-light conditions.

There is also a dual-purpose fingerprint scanner technology that delivers instant, secure access to your device, where the 3D fingerprint scanner can unlock some of the phone’s most popular functions such as taking pictures, answering calls, or turning off an alarm in a jiffy. A smart key located on the back of the handset lets one access additional customizable features as well.

An octa-core CPU with a 3000 mAh battery and Huawei’s proprietary power saving technologies would ensure that the Huawei Honor 8 can last the distance, while its industry-leading fast-charge technology juices up the batteries by up to 50% in about 30 minutes. 4GB of RAM, a 5.2” LTPS Full HD display, and a choice of either 32GB or 64GB of internal memory rounds off the hardware specifications, with Android 6.0 Marshmallow running the show. Expect the 32GB and 64GB models of the Huawei Honor 8 to retail for $399.99 and $449.99, respectively, as pre-orders are ongoing until September 3.

Press Release
[ Huawei Honor 8 ready to rock the US market copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Welfare reform, perhaps the signature legislation of Bill Clinton’s presidency, recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. The use of the word “celebrated” would depend greatly on who was asked.

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act transformed an open-ended cash assistance program to a finite program that attached benefits to those in need to work, subsidized by federal grants applied to the state. Along with assistance contributed by the states, it was designed to change welfare as we know it.

Some 7,300 days have passed since welfare reform was enacted, and this hallmark legislation of the Clinton administration may be just as controversial today as when it became law.

According to the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI), by 2001, employment among never-married mothers had jumped 15 percentage points, welfare caseloads had dropped by almost half, and poverty among African Americans was reduced to its lowest level in history.

But the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities believes that welfare reform is badly in need of an overhaul. Ladonna Pavetti and Liz Scott recently penned an article on the Center’s website stating:

“The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant, established 20 years ago, is overdue for reform. TANF’s combination of nearly unfettered state flexibility, fixed block grant funding, narrowly defined work requirements, and time limits has created a system that provides a safety net to very few families in need and does little to prepare low-income parents for success in today’s labor market.”

When AEI cited welfare reform’s success, the economy was roaring. It was an economic time when one could indeed lift himself or herself out of poverty. But it’s a very different economy today.

Even working multiple jobs is not an antiseptic from needing benefits to makes ends meet. Moreover, several Fortune 500 companies have been permitted to game the system by not providing enough work hours in order to avoid qualifying for benefits, thereby, in effect, forcing, at times actively encouraging, workers to accept the government dole.

Yet our collective condemnation seems to lean heavier on the individuals who need the benefits than the companies that improve their bottom line at the public’s expense.

As with most other issues within the public discourse, holding simultaneously all the complexities of welfare reform is a gargantuan task to which we’ve proven unable, perhaps more to the point, unwilling, to hold.

I don’t believe a $15-per-hour minimum wage will be any type of panacea. As much as Sen. Bernie Sanders championed this idea on the campaign trail, if brought to fruition it would be an unprecedented shock to an economy with anemic growth.

The reflexive response becomes blaming the poor, seeing them as a one-dimensional straw persons whose collective plight can be reduced to the sin of indolence. It is easy to offer that the best poverty program is a job, while ignoring the numbers of people who have multiple jobs but still languish in poverty.

The challenges presented by poverty in 21st century America are simply not the same as yesteryear.

The blue-collar manufacturing jobs that once paid a decent wage that held communities together are a thing of the past. And in spite of the political cacophony to the contrary, they are not coming back.

According to the UC Berkeley Labor Center, manufacturing production wages now rank in the bottom half of all jobs in the United States. In decades past, production workers employed in manufacturing earned wages significantly higher than the U.S. average, but by 2013 the typical manufacturing production worker made 7.7 percent below the median wage for all occupations.

Technology and globalization are major factors in earning potential that have placed an additional premium on education. But we also know that college is not for everyone, nor should it be. Perhaps our K-12 education in its current form could use some revamping so that it adequately prepares students who are college-bound as well as those who are not.
Lest we forget, it only takes a single catastrophic medical bill to hurl a family into the unforgiving clutches of poverty.

Blaming the poor as a shiftless lot assuages the fears of a growing segment within the middle class whose economic trajectory moves them closer to the poor they have been conditioned to despise and further from the artisans of that hyperbolic yarn about the poor.

Marking welfare reform’s birthday may not be as important as understanding and addressing the myriad ways poverty can invade the tentacles of a tenuous economy in the 21st century.

The Rev. Byron Williams, is a writer and the host of the “The Public Morality”.

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