The polarities of the torture debate require conscious questioning of both the just and unjust philosophical undertones of torture. The codified case and law of the term “torture” in the United States is particularly strait forward in that any form of inflicting severe, physical or mental pain or suffering on an individual falls under the eighth amendment, the clause of cruel and unusual punishment, in the United States Constitution. Continue reading…

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Malnutrition continues to remain the largest cause of child mortalities worldwide, averaging at more than one-third of all child mortalities that occur (World Bank, 2006). Malnutrition, also, can hinder child cognitive development, and as a reaction, affected children are often unable to attend institutions of learning thus increasing the likelihood of economic disadvantage if survived into adulthood. Continue reading… 

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6jeff g, chava, soundcloud,

Epic find of the week. Can Obama get any more interesting? The guy is filled with endless interconnections and, as your about to find out, a very cool genealogical history. Lets list some new findings.

1. “John Punch was an African indentured servant who lived in seventeenth century, colonial York County, Virginia. In 1640, he was bound as a servant for life as punishment for having tried to escape from his indenture. Some genealogists and historians describe Punch as “the first African documented to be enslaved for life in what would eventually become the United States.” 

2. In July 2012, Ancestry.com published a paper documenting the combination of historic research and Y-DNA analysis that supports the conclusion that Punch was an eleventh-generation maternal grandfather of President Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the United States. So yes, he is related to John Punch maternally, through his white mother Stanley Ann Dunham, whom has an african ancestry, particularly through the “free people of color” from colonial Virginia; people of full or partial african descent who were not enslaved. 

 3. Bunch, Punch, and Bunche stem from the same ancestry. So, who is Ralphie Bunche? Bunch was an African American political scientist, academic, and diplomat and the first african to win a Nobel Prize for his late 1940s mediation in Palestine. In 2012 researchers published evidence showing that Bunch male descendants can be traced through historical records and y-DNA analysis to, yep, you guessed it, John Punch.

Yep. Two descendents, from the first documented black slave in America to the first black Nobel Laureate, to the first black president of the united states, whom also won a Nobel Prize! 

Pretty cool. I am no genealogist, but I think this is the most interesting lineage, and narrative, I have seen in sometime. Do a little more research, you will find Obama is also related to George Bush, Warren Buffet, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and Brad Pitt. No kidding!

6John Punch, Ralphie Bunche, Barack Obama, Stanley Ann Dunhham,