2011 November 01 |

Rami Kashou

Fashion Designer

Host: Basima Farhat

Previously Aired On: Tuesday, November 15, 2011 – Listen to the Show!

The son of the former Miss Jordan, Rami Kashou was born in Jerusalem in 1976 and raised in the West Bank city of Ramallah. His talent for design carried him through the challenges of a childhood interrupted by turmoil. “I grew up under military occupation. I used to sketch to escape the harsh reality and in an ugly situation I would create beauty.” Kashou remembers telling his mother and grandmother what to wear from the time he was five years old.

By age nine, he had started sketching designs for the women in his Ramallah neighborhood. “Women from the neighborhood would come to our house to drink coffee and I would show them my new designs. They would bring their fabric and I would design based on the fabric and then accompany them to the local seamstress and she would make the dresses.”

Upon arriving in the U.S. in 1996, Kashou worked in retail for several years. This eventually led him to a buying and merchandising position at a well-known boutique in Los Angeles. After a stint of traveling to Europe as a buyer, Kashou bit the bullet and purchased two sewing machines. He vigorously studied pattern making from the local vintage boutiques. “I would buy a piece and take it apart and inspect it, then I would learn.” Kashou said. After three years of self-education, he began creating what would later be known as the “One of a Kind” collection that was picked up by various notable Los Angeles boutiques.

A seasoned veteran of runway shows, Rami Kashou has shown his devotion and passion for groundbreaking feminine design, and as a result has become one of the most coveted runway shows to attend during fashion week, attracting celebrities such as Jessica Alba, Christina Aguilera, and Amy Smart. He was honored with the Gen Art Alumni sponsorship to showcase his collection in the tents of Bryant Park in addition to his numerous seasons at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week at Smashbox Studios in Los Angeles.

Known for his dramatic red carpet gowns, Rami has draped the silhouettes of celebrities and trendsetters such as Her Majesty Queen Rania of Jordan, Penelope Cruz, Malin Akerman, Dita Von Teese, Heidi Klum, Jennifer Lopez, Fergie, Becki Newton, Paris Hilton, and Lindsay Lohan to name a few. His designs have graced the pages of the New York Times Magazine, Vogue, Women’s Wear Daily, Interview, Elle, In Style, and Flaunt amongst many others.

Rami Kashou has been recognized in the U.S. and abroad as an innovative designer. In 2005, Kashou was commissioned to create the costumes for America’s Next Top Model national ad campaign. Rami has also been honored by a variety of prominent institutions such as the Make a Wish Foundation, American Task Force on Palestine, the LA Fashion Awards, Seeds of Peace, and the Los Angeles City Council.

Rami’s television appearances include Live with Regis and Kelly, the Tyra Banks Show, Behind the Velvet Ropes on the Style Network, HSN, E! News, Fashion Team on the TV Guide Channel, Movie and a Makeover, Wealth TV, Alarabiya TV and Al Hurra. Most notably, Kashou was a finalist on Bravo’s Project Runway, showing yet another stunning collection at Bryant Park during Fashion Week.

Known for his signature draping, Rami seeks to bring out the goddess in every woman with elegance, femininity and style. Starting with his mother, women have always served as his muse. “I wake up every day to celebrate women,” says Kashou.

Kashou’s signature element – draping – is “undoubtedly inspired by Palestinian style. A big part of Palestinian culture is presentation. Women are well dressed in Palestine even if they don’t have access to the latest fashions. As a young designer I saw beauty in the way the fabric moved and I think that whispers in my work today.”

“Being Palestinian gave me strength because in many people’s eyes we don’t exist. I am determined to exist through my work. Palestinians don’t have freedom or equal rights today. But I have my talent and my dream and no one can take that away from me.”

Please visit:
http://www.RamiKashou.com

Ellen Brown

Author/Chairman and President of The Public Banking Institute

Host: Basima Farhat

Previously Aired On: Tuesday, November 8, 2011 – Listen to the Show!

Ellen Brown, J.D., developed her research skills as an attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. She is the author of 11 books, and will be releasing another in 2011 focused on public banking. In Web of Debt, her most recent book, she traces the history and evolution of the current private banking system. She shows how it has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Ellen has written nearly 100 articles on this subject since Web of Debt was first published, and is the inspiration and thought leader behind the Public Banking Institute, where she serves as Chairman and President. She has degrees from UC Berkeley and UCLA School of Law.

About “WEB OF DEBT”
This book exposes important, often obscured truths about our money system and our economic past and future. Our money is not what we have been led to believe. The creation of money has been “privatized,” or taken over by a private money cartel. It is all done by sleight of hand, concealed by economic double-speak. “Web of Debt” unravels the deception and presents a crystal clear picture of the financial abyss towards which we are heading, pointing out all the signposts. Then it explores a workable alternative, one that was tested in colonial America and is grounded in the best of American economic thought, including the writings of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. If you care about financial security, your own or the nation’s, you should read this book.

Ellen Brown has applied her training as a litigating attorney, researcher and writer to the monetary field, unearthing facts that even the majority of banking and financial experts ignore: ranging from the privatization of money creation, to the Plunge Protection Team, to the Federal Reserve’s `Helicopter Money.

ABOUT THE PUBLIC BANKING INSTITUTE
The Public Banking Institute (PBI) was formed in January 2011 as an educational non-profit organization. Its mission is to further the understanding, explore the possibilities, and facilitate the implementation of public banking at all levels — local, regional, state, and national.

PBI’s vision is to establish a distributed network of state and local publicly-owned banks that create affordable credit, while providing a sustainable alternative to the current high-risk centralized private banking system. This network would act in the public interest, using its counter-cyclical credit-generating capacity to stabilize potential credit crises, maintain the floor against threats of asset devaluations, build infrastructure, and fund expansion of critical industrial productive capacity. Most important, public banking would create jobs, by partnering with local banks to fund local business, advancing credit for public infrastructure, and augmenting government revenues.

PBI’s mission includes analyzing U.S. and global financial events to facilitate public banking, sharing best practices and lessons learned from research and initiatives in the U.S. and globally, using PBI’s online resources, website, webinars, blog, and in-person conferences. PBI’s activities include:

•Publication of research involving the U.S. private banking system, past and current;
•Evaluation of existing and historical public banking models, in the U.S. and abroad;
•Publication of research regarding the legal requirements, structure, and daily operations of existing and proposed public banking and financing systems;
•Publication of a semi-annual legislative guide and presentations to aide local public banking initiatives; and
•Organization of public forums that enable state and local public banking efforts.

Please visit:
www.WebofDebt.com
www.PublicBankingInstitute.org

William Thorpe and Robert Wheeler

William Thorpe: Son of Jim Thorpe
Robert Wheeler: Author of Jim Thorpe: World’s Greatest Athlete

Host: Basima Farhat

Previously Aired On: Tuesday, November 1, 2011 – Listen to the Show!

Born in 1888 in Oklahoma Territory, Jim Thorpe was a Sac and Fox Indian. After attending the Sac and Fox agency school and Haskell Indian Junior College in Lawrence, Kansas, he transferred to Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. At Carlisle he led the football team to victories over some of the nation’s best college teams-Army, Navy, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Pennsylvania, and Nebraska. In 1912 he participated in the Olympic Games in Stockholm, winning both the decathlon and pentathlon. It was then that King Gustav V of Sweden dubbed him “the world’s greatest athlete.”

In 1913, strict rules regarding amateurism were in effect for athletes participating in the Olympics. Athletes who received money prizes for competitions, were sports teachers, or had competed previously against professionals, were not considered amateurs and were barred from competition.

Thorpe’s Medals and record were stripped by the IOC after they decided he had played baseball during 1909 and 1910 earning money as a college student. The IOC declared that he was a professional although protests leading to this disqualification came 6 months after the 30-day rule for such allowable contesting.

Between 1913 and 1919, Thorpe played professional baseball for the New York Giants, the Cincinnati Reds, and the Boston Braves. In 1915 he began playing professional football with the Canton (Ohio) Bulldogs. When the top teams were organized into the American Professional Football Association in 1920, Thorpe was named the first president of the league, which was renamed the National Football League in 1922. Throughout his career he excelled in every sport he played, earning King Gustav’s accolade many times over.

Thorpe’s achievements received great acclaim from sports journalists, both during his lifetime and since his death. In 1950, an Associated Press poll of almost 400 sportswriters and broadcasters voted Thorpe the “greatest athlete” of the first half of the 20th century. That same year, the Associated Press named Thorpe the “greatest American football player” of the first half of the century. In 1999, the Associated Press placed him third on its list of the top athletes of the century, following Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan. ESPN ranked Thorpe seventh on their list of best North American athletes of the century.

Thorpe was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963, one of seventeen players in the charter class. Thorpe is memorialized in the Pro Football Hall of Fame rotunda with a larger-than-life statue. He was also inducted into halls of fame for college football, American Olympic teams, and the national track and field competition.

President Richard Nixon, as authorized by U.S. Senate Joint Resolution 73, proclaimed Monday, April 16, 1973 as “Jim Thorpe Day” to promote the nationwide recognition of Thorpe. In 1986, the Jim Thorpe Association established an award with Thorpe’s name. The Jim Thorpe Award is given annually to the best defensive back in college football. The annual Thorpe Cup athletics meeting is named in his honor.

In 1982, Robert Wheeler (author of Jim Thorpe: World’s Greatest Athlete) and his wife Florence Ridlon established the Jim Thorpe Foundation and gained support from the U.S. Congress. Armed with this support and evidence from 1912 proving that Thorpe’s disqualification had occurred after the 30-day time period allowed by Olympics rules, they succeeded in making the case to the IOC. In October 1982, the IOC Executive Committee approved Thorpe’s reinstatement.

Controversy followed Jim Thorpe even at the time of his burial in 1953. During a Native Ceremonial burial in Oklahoma, Thorpe’s body was claimed by his wife Patsy who then eventually turned it over to a newly formed town that agreed to name itself Jim Thorpe.

In June 2010, Jack Thorpe – one of Jim Thorpe’s sons, filed a federal lawsuit to have his father’s remains returned to Oklahoma for a proper burial. The basis of his lawsuit was the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 that allows American Indian descendants to determine and have control over their ancestral human remains.

The case was allowed to continue should his remaining 2 brothers and the Oklahoma Sac & Fox Nation support the lawsuit. Jack recently passed away and the brothers William and Richard as well as the Sac & Fox Nation have joined the fight for the return of Jim Thorpe’s remains to Oklahoma.

The 2012 Olympics will mark the 100th year anniversary of Jim Thorpe’s victories at the 1912 Olympics. The world will hopefully be reminded of the extraordinary achievements of Jim Thorpe and hopefully his accomplishments given the full honor and recognition they deserve.