I'm here to talk to you on why we should be aware of people with disabilities in our community. Masin is, first of all, an organization that stands for Muslims' understanding and helping special education needs. It is an organization that was formed two years ago, just over two years ago, founded by Shia Omar Suleiman. And as Brother Munir was saying, we are working with Masajid across the country, and we are aiming to basically foster a more welcoming environment into the Muslims. First of all, who in the room knows somebody with a disability? A show of hands. That's a large majority. And then there are probably some people who know people who don't want to raise their hands, which is also okay. Disability is really a term for any kind of a condition that affects the way a person functions, whether it's the way they function physically, whether it's the way they think they're processing, neurological, the way they perceive their environment. These are all disabilities. And they can be physical, they can be mental, they can be neurological. They can be visible, and they can be invisible disabilities. However, there are so many people impacted by disability. It's all around us. And I always like to give a visual up here on the screen of people with disabilities so that we can get a better feeling of who are these people. They're young, they're old, they're children, they're adults. Disability does not discriminate. They're Muslim, they're non-Muslim. And what it's important to share is that disability can impact any of us at any time in our lives. So there are people that are born with disability. There are people that get injured and that causes a disability. There are also people who have an illness. And that illness leads to a disability. So no matter whether you're young or old, at some point in your life, may Allah protect us all, we could be, in fact, impacted by disability. So it's something that really concerns all of us. And I think that's important, that today, if you're not dealing with any kind of challenge, it's still important that we discuss it as a community and that we know about it. Let's talk about the types of disabilities really quickly. A lot of the things up here you probably have heard of, whether it's autism, whether it's being blind, deaf, I'm sure you've heard of Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, things like bipolar disorder, that's a mental disability. Certain types of learning disabilities exist. The list goes on and on and on, but the prevalence or the numbers are increasing in our communities. So what, if I told you the statistics that one in 600 births are Down syndrome births today. That's Muslims too. You know, one in 55 children are on the autism spectrum. That's Muslims too. These are impacting us greatly, our community. So it's really important that we understand how to deal with these numbers and how to embrace these members of our communities. Our organization once said we did a survey and we asked people, what are the different types of disability that are affecting you? And these are responses up on the screen by Muslims. And as you can see, a large prevalence of autism, a large prevalence of just general developmental delays. Every one of us knows someone in the community dealing with this. And it's important to acknowledge that it is happening with us. When we think about disabilities, I want us to understand that these people are individuals first. They are not and should not be defined by their disability. They're members of our community. So, you know, they're no less Muslim. They deserve a place in our in our communities and our mosjids. And we want to work harder to make them, you know, more welcome and not ostracize them, not exclude them from activities. Every individual, whether they have a disability or not, they have strengths. They have, you know, parts of them that we can celebrate. They have skills, things that we can develop. It's exceptionally important that we keep this in mind. Don't judge a book by its cover. If I sat here today and I said, I am an executive director of Muslim and I run an organization, but I have a child with a disability. Does that change the way you see me? I have a volunteer who's one of my lead volunteers. He's a grown adult man, yet he's in a wheelchair. Does that impact the way he can add value to our organization? No, we have to give everybody a chance. Some people with disabilities, when they have a cognitive disability, something that's impacting their intellect or their processing, they will remain innocent. These people will be sinless. I'm sure you've heard this before. You know, people like that, they don't even have accountability with Allah swt. He has given them that leave. And to remain sinless, I mean, is that amazing? Who doesn't want to be sinless? That's such a blessing. These are some of the people we're talking about. And everybody is tested in different ways. And at times we can look at disability as a test. And if Allah swt has decreed this test, it's our response to that test that he is looking for. And everybody with special needs and disabilities, they have personality, they have temperament. We all do in our own right. And we need to just address that. And these struggles sometimes draw us closer to Allah swt. Some people become angry. Some people become upset. Some people withdraw. However, our response to this test inevitably does draw us back to the entity that is giving us the test, which is indeed our creator. And people with disabilities have feelings. They have feelings too. I am not going to stress and give everyone a lecture on Islam. I am not an alimah. I'm not a scholar. However, the one thing I can tell you is that there are several hadith and mentions in the Quran and lessons that we can take about our delates and how we should interact with people with disabilities as our responsibility as Muslims. I'd like to read this. His perfect wisdom decrees that he creates opposites. So he has created angels and devils night and day, purity and impurity. He created his slaves with differences in their bodies and minds and in their strengths. He has made some rich and some poor, some healthy and some sickly, some wise and some foolish. By his wisdom, he tests them and he tests some by means of others to show who will be grateful and who will be ungrateful. So when Allah swt is saying he tests some by means of others, that's the rest of us. For those of us who are able-bodied and able-minded, disability around us is a test for us. How are we responding to these community members? How are we treating them? How are we interacting with them? This is extremely important. So whether it's a family member, whether it's a community member or it's someone you just know, what have you done in response to that person and their disability? Allah has put them here as signs for all of us. And one of the hadiths we talk about, I know a lot of you have heard the story of the blind man and our Prophet Salaam was approached by the blind man. However, I want to share another story of another companion. And that companion was named Julea Beb. And Julea Beb was a dear friend of our beloved Prophet Salaam. He was a companion, he was slightly different than everybody else. He had a deformed face. He was about this high. He had no friends. First of all, does anyone here know the story of Julea Beb? Yeah. So some of you have heard. Prophet Salaam realized and took him in as a friend. He not only took him in as a friend, he included him in everything. He invited him to everything. He even realized that he needed more companionship and he took his side and he helped him to get married. This is the prophetic example. This is the sunnah of what we should be doing with community members like this. He also, Julea Beb asked our Prophet Salaam, can I go to battle just like everybody else? And he knew Salaam that this was not a good idea because this companion was not physically fit or strong to be able to go and fight. However, he saw his urge, his need to want to go and belong and be like, you know, of help as everybody else was. He allowed him. And again, he joined with everyone else. He was included and he became martyred in that battle. Prophet Salaam took his body. He carried him. He buried him. He prayed over him. He gave him that dignity in his death and he gave that example for everybody else to see that he is of me and I am of him is what was said about Julea Beb. And I think it's a very, very powerful example today to teach us about how our interactions should be with people who have any kind of a special need, even though they may be outcast or they may be different. Where are these people that I'm speaking of in our communities? Well, again, like I said, we've been doing some surveys across the community. I believe there's even a survey link on your website. If you know anybody who has a disability or a family member who has a disability, please refer them to the MCC East Bay website because what you'll be able to do is direct them to take a little short survey. If they can take that survey, it's anonymous, but it'll tell a lot of people in the community and it's totally anonymous. The results come to us. We will then tell the Masajid, you need to do more of this program. Our community members here, they need this from you. They need sign language. They need childcare for people with disabilities. So we will advocate on their behalf. And the survey responses show that obviously these are some of the states, well, Chicago is where we are based, I've had quartered, but we're nationwide. But essentially all over the country, we have people with disabilities. And there are about 600,000 Muslims with disabilities in America. 600,000. That's a really large number. And that is verified by the FYI, the Family Youth Institute. These are clusters across the country of people who have registered with Muslim who have disabilities. And these are the areas we are working in also. When it comes to the Masjid, all our Masjids, masha'Allah, they have different programs and different committees. This is just a brief listing of some of the common committees that you'll see. They'll be as a God committee. There's always some sort of a counseling committee. I know, masha'Allah, you're blessed to have Khalil Center here. They run food collections. You get some sort of youth committee. You have probably a women's committee, a Dawa committee, all very important committees, and they all need to be a part of a thriving community. What's missing from here happens to be a special needs services committee. And when we hear the numbers are staggering and the incidence is growing, let's all think about joining, volunteering, and having this type of committee. How do disabilities affect us all? They're obviously going to affect the individual who is impacted by the disability. In addition, they're going to affect the family.  Who's missing in that box? It affects the individual. It affects the family. And who else does it impact? Exactly. It impacts the community. It impacts all of us. So, my point is that person is not in the community. It's having an impact because they're missing or they're having a challenge. So, look inside our communities and see where are these people and why aren't they there? Maybe they don't have caregiver support. Maybe they're giving care to a stroke patient. Maybe they're giving care to somebody who is exceptionally elderly and has become disabled. Maybe they have a young child with a disability who can't sit and attend in a Masjid program and they need support. These people are all at home and they're missing from these gatherings. And I can honestly say I was one of those people for many years because we didn't have that kind of support. When we asked in our survey how accessible is your Masjid, one of the things was we asked people specifically about programs and a large majority of the respondents came back and said, not very accessible. Sorry. And they gave us what they wanted. And that's why when we formed Masjid, there's so much being done that the community is asking for. Alhamdulillah, because nobody needs to guess. We're asking on that survey and people are telling us what the programs are. Of course here, I don't think Sheikh Omar Suleiman needs any introduction, but he is the founder of Masjid. He had this idea many, many years ago and he wanted to form an organization that would be a very, very structured way of working with Masjids around the country. We are a fully registered 501c3 non-profit organization. And the whole goal is to make our communities more welcoming for people with disabilities.  And he saw the type of treatment that she received as someone who lived with a disability. And it was something that actually propelled him to think about the idea for Masjid. Next, we're going to see a quick video. Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. This is Omar Suleiman. You know, this is truly a dream come true just to be a part of a promo about after all these years of planning and getting it together and, you know, just envisioning, subhanallah, what it would be like for the Muslim community to have an effort, an initiative that goes out there and remosks, you know, an often forgotten group of unmasked individuals, and unmasked families, in fact, that have people in their, that have, you know, children that have people in their families that have these special needs and that have these disabilities. Assalamu alaikum. My name is Arshay Ali Khan and today I'm here to talk to you a little bit about my brother. I want to take this time to talk to you about my daughter Serena, who is much less six and a half now and she's a bright, loving, kind, fun child who has this great toothless smile right now that she lost her tooth and she also has cerebral palsy. Assalamu alaikum. My name is Feryal Tahir and I'm 15 years old and I have a sister named Mehreen and she's great at basketball. She's a Liz at the computers.  When I was 19 years old, my brother was diagnosed with a mental illness, an invisible disability. At the time there was no community support or religious outlets that we could turn to for help. So instead of being supported, we felt alienated and shamed. There are so many families that are affected by this in our community and we just don't see them. SubhanAllah because they're buried away while we're enjoying our khultabahs and we're enjoying our halakas and we're enjoying all the great activities in the masjid. These families have been completely barred from the masjid and when they set foot in the masjid, it's the most uncomfortable feeling in the world.  We just need a little extra help. We need a little extra support. We need a little understanding but inshallah we can get there. There's no reason not to. It's not asking for a lot. It's just asking for a little bit of a little bit of acceptance, a little bit of sensitivity and I think an organization like Mosin is the perfect vehicle to do that inshallah. I pray for the success of Mosin because had there been an organization that was around for us to connect to, that provided awareness, acceptance and guidance, perhaps my brother wouldn't have been left alone. Perhaps my mom wouldn't have put herself to bed crying day in and day out. Perhaps families like ours would have had a place to go and people to support them through it. What helps me get through everything when we're going through a struggle with Mahreen is that thinking that Mahreen is an angel and if we hold on to a sinless angel like Mahreen inshallah she will help us on the day of judgment and she will take us to Jannah inshallah and I would like other people to feel the same way. Inshallah ta'ala through this through Mosin we can begin to show ihsan to them and hopefully we can make the Masjid more comfortable for them and they can make our day of judgment more comfortable for us by testifying on our behalf that we truly did ease the way for them. One of the things that I like to think is when people see us outside as a family, don't look away from us and ignore us. Even a smile is charity. Smile at us. There is a lot of families like us out there. We all need to support each other and the families who are not like us need to step up and help us out. I have been blessed and honored to develop and work for the Umma Center, a non-profit dedicated to empowering the lies of the underserved, the alienated, the disenfranchised, the poor. We provide education empowerment programs and basic need programs and with every person that I have fed, educated, clothed and served, I pray deep down that there is someone out there doing the same for my brother. These are real people and it's people like that that exist in every community. They're not here today. Maybe very few of them, maybe very few of them have entered, have even entered this Muslim, but we know because they reach out to us. So with that said, what are we doing about these families? Muslim has created programs and services, so we are really trying to make this very simple. We create community-wide awareness events like this event that you have here. We do this around the country. We try to create awareness. The number one thing is awareness, which leads to accommodation, which then leads to acceptance. If we are not aware of these individuals, how will we ever be able to serve them? So that's the first step is awareness. Then we build accommodations into the masajid that will help them. So let me give you an example. Family support groups is listed. This is something we're doing around the country now where on a regular basis, perhaps monthly, we'll create a family support group, whether it's for the actual caregivers or whether it's even for siblings or even the person themselves who's living with disability. There's always a professional licensed counselor that Muslim provides, and then this is a safe place that these families can get together and connect on a monthly basis. It takes place in the masjid usually, but we are providing that opportunity for if there is a father of someone with a disability and they meet their brothers in the masjid for Salah every day, maybe they can't talk to everyone about the challenges that they have in their home with their family because that's something everybody doesn't understand. However, in a support group, this is an opportunity where people who are facing similar challenges can connect. You can get advice from one another. You can vent about your challenges. We actually have weekend school programs, so specialized programs in Islamic education. We have seven programs running across the country where children with disabilities can learn about the theme. So we have teachers who are trained who will work one-on-one. So maybe this child can't sit in a typical Sunday school class, but they can be taught. We are not going to give up on this individual just because they have a disability. Instead, we're going to customize the way we teach these children. So with our trained professionals, they can be taught, whether it's at Doha, whether it's Arabic letters, whether it's how to pray, they will be included in the weekend school programs, and these programs are already up and running. We have the lesson plans, we have the materials, the volunteers, we have the know-how, and Mashallah, it's a great program. We provide rail grounds, we provide sign language interpreters, we provide care for families who need to take a break. We do youth workshops, which we'll be doing one here tomorrow. I encourage each and every one of you, anybody who has someone who's like 15 and up, it's a great program to get trained, sensitivity training. This is not something that even in public school, it's even talked about, because everybody already knows how to interact with people with disabilities. Somehow we get to the Muslim community and we forget. So it's really important that we do this type of training workshop and we do do those for the youth. Like I said, please encourage people to attend tomorrow at noon here today, tomorrow at noon in this masjid. And we also have a matrimonial service for people with disabilities. We also are working towards a residential facility. Down the road, these Muslims with disabilities may need to have support in a residential setting. Their caregivers are aging. What happens after I can no longer take care of my child? Who will take care of her when she has to live if she cannot live independently? This is a concern of a lot of our families. So masjid is working towards regional homes where they will have a halal safe Muslim setting where these individuals can live and have access to their dean. Nobody wants to think about that, but we have to think about that. We have to sow the seeds now for what the future holds for these individuals who are growing up. Those 600,000 Muslims with disabilities, who will be taking care of them? These are some of our programs. The events that we've run, they range. These are some of the pictures from our conventions where we've provided like these fast-passed lines to go and skip the lines at a convention. If you don't want to wait for registration, Muslim has taken care of some of those supports and childcare at conventions and preferred seating. We do advocacy. We do some walks and some marches and we show our unity. This happens to be a picture of the autism walk where Muslim, our team, had the number one team at the entire walk at Soldier Field in Chicago. These have been done in Dallas. They've been done in New York. They've been done in Chicago. They can be done out here in the West Coast. If there is a particular cause that's important to your community out here, it could be the Down Syndrome Guild. It can be the autism walk. It could be Muscular Dystrophy Association. Started Team Muslim out here from MCC East Bay. We'd be happy to support. We'll do fun t-shirts. You walk together as a team. You show the world and the families that we unite for this cause. When Muslim got named the number one team in Chicago, people couldn't believe Muslims who have so much stigma about disability got named the number one team. We had 300 team members registered to walk. It's a huge form of drama, too, if you think about it. People see that we care about universal causes. It's an absolutely beautiful way to show your support to these families. Whether you have someone with a disability or not, it would be great to show up. As I wrap up education, I talked about the weekend school program. These are some of the photos of some of our students. They've all been put up here with permission, working hand in hand with them, hands on. Different strategies work for different students, but these children can indeed learn. The inclusion part of it is so powerful. Our typical Muslim children should be exposed to children with special needs because indeed they are blessed souls.  And to know them, to serve them, to empower them, that should be our goal and include them in the community. And it's really important. I want to share a quote from an article called Embracing Special Children. Islam is a religion of one community and one ummah, undivided. As such, the community shares responsibility in providing the religious needs of our children as well. And that includes all children that Allah has sent upon us as a trust. It is our duty as a community to include such children actively, accept them lovingly, and teach all of our children to respect and love each other for the sake of Allah. So that means a no-bullying policy. That means you make friends with children with special needs. That means learn to interact with them. Our volunteers at Muslim are some of the most selfless individuals you will meet. Anybody sitting here can be a volunteer from Muslim. See us at the table at the back when we finish and sign up. Just leave your name and email. If there's an activity that's going to be taking place here, because as Brother Munir mentioned, M.C.C. East Bay is already the first level of certification. They've done some preliminary things to become certified. What does that include? I'm going to be talking about that a little bit tomorrow afternoon. Actually, we'll be having a formal presentation tomorrow afternoon to award M.C.C. East Bay, because MashaAllah, it's a big deal. First Masjid on the west coast, that's a great achievement. We have several across the country now, about 13, but this is the first one here. The team, we couldn't run our programs without volunteers, and so whether it's helping children, whether it's helping adults, whether it's bringing someone to the Masjid for a weekly halacha, whether it's someone who can't drive, whether it's leading someone in who has trouble seeing, whether it's, you know, you know somebody who's in the community who happens to be blind, contact us, we'll provide a braille haran for them. We have it in Arabic, braille. We have it in English braille. No problem. We'll send it to you. We'll mail it right here. If you want to just offer that, or you want to just say, just order it on my behalf, we'll get it. Everyone here can do something. Maybe it's a phone call to someone that they haven't seen in a while in the community. Well, trust me, we'll think of lots of things that people can do. I won't be going through this, but this is the Masjid certification program. The leaders of the Masjid have gone through this. It's a checklist. These are the different levels, silver, gold, and platinum. And when Chef Marcin Amman launched Muslim, he wanted there to be structure, and he wanted it to be something to strive for. So all the Masjids are almost kind of competing to get certified at these different levels. And it can be something as simple as well. Eid Salah is coming up. During Eid, can we have a separate, maybe a room where individuals with special needs may not feel comfortable being in the main Masala or wherever you pray? Maybe we can have a separate area with some trained volunteers to help keep an eye and help them. I want to share quickly that I had the experience of we had helped in one community. There was a mother who actually got to pray Eid Salah after 15 years. She was so moved that someone would help watch her two teenage children who both had severe autism. They were in the separate room. Our trained volunteers helped. They were entertained. There was even a party for Eids for them afterwards with gifts. The mother got to pray Eid Salah and hear the hudba after 15 years. That is the impact you can have on people. And we take it for granted. We don't think that there are people like this. So that's why we're here, is to raise that awareness. These are some of the Masjids that are currently, they've passed the silver level everywhere from the Chicago area to New Jersey to Dallas to Milwaukee Wisconsin and all around and of course MCC East Bay. Some sample programs that we have had throughout the country. We had a mental health panel. Very, very important. Goes along with what I was saying about support. We have the social times that we can do for these families. So maybe you say once a month we'll open up the gymnasium, the gym area and we can have these families come in and socialize. Provide some snacks. Provide some peer buddies and some of these youth who we are going to be training tomorrow. Some of them can actually engage with these families. It means the world to the people who've been excluded to finally be included. And again, whether it's a support group, whether it's just an awareness event like we're doing tonight, these are types of programs that we are able to provide and we help the Masjid all the way through. With that, I'd like to conclude and thank you all for your attention. And I just also, do we have a couple minutes for question and answer questions? And of course, if there are any comments, we'd be more than happy to, you know, hear what you think about this and answer anything that we can see some parents, especially kids in our community. So if they want to say anything about how we as a community at MTCs make work better for you, I'd be really happy to hear. I have a mother of two kids with special needs. One with severe cerebral palsy, one with cerebral palsy, development of delays and seizure disorder. And I've been bringing him to MCC for current classes for the last three years with Pariyama. And he's been, he's just been a blessing and he takes care of him. He comes every Monday night and once a night to a class. He's a fast learner and he treats him with respect. And I mean, I am beyond grateful for the services he's given to my son. And he also goes to Saturday school at S.R.B.I.T. and the teachers there treat him with respect, with the extra hand that he needs. So I am humbled. I am grateful. That's an absolutely beautiful testament. You don't hear that very often. So we commend MCC East Bay, the volunteers, the staff because that shows you that they are in tune with what the community needs. I also encourage you and commend you, sister, for bringing your child. Oftentimes you hear people complain about things, but they don't participate when there is an opportunity. And I know how difficult it is. I, as a parent, have struggled. My daughter is now 17, who has autism, but there have been so many times when I've come to the Mosque that haven't always felt welcome. And it's, it's hard to go back. It's hard to ignore the stairs, but I encourage families to come out because this also is your home. This Mosque belongs to all of you. Thank you for sharing. That's beautiful. Anybody else? Any other, yes, brother? We learn about the diversity, the inclusiveness. And we, from the Prophet Mosul, also a lot from the early days, we learn the diversity and inclusiveness. Yet we don't practice it. It's very unfortunate. And I'm glad to see this now being introduced and the awareness to the general people. It's nice. I'm very happy to see this. Thank you. Jazakallah. Please keep us in your dwellings. And this is a work in progress. It's getting, it's getting there. It's getting better. But we need, we need everybody's support. Thank you for your feedback. Welcome Salam. I just want to say, you're doing a, you're doing a fantastic thing.  I think it's a wonderful thing. And I think all of us, we, it should be our duty to help. You shouldn't be asking us. Thank you for giving us things about we should do this. It's an obligation to help. And I'm not truly rewarding. I think which truly is fantastic. I mean, Jazakallah. Thank you so much for your support. It means a lot. And it's a team. There's a, there's a large team of people who do the work and Masha'Allah they, like I said, they care so much about people. They're so selfless. It should come naturally, but you'll see also, as you work with this population, it becomes addictive. You want to always, you know, help them and be with them because they're truly reminders of Allah, creation and His will. And I think with that, we'll wrap it up and we'll be at the table if people want to meet us afterwards. If you want to ask any questions, Jazakallah. Thank you to MCC East Bay and Brother Munir. Thank you. Jazakallah for giving your time. I unfortunately wasn't able to attend the class, but I am sure that inshallah, the knowledge was a great benefit for all of you, inshallah. And may Allah's will allow us to reach Ramadan and to make it a very productive time for all of us. I know the topic of disability is not something that we talk about very often. One of the reasons why we are working with Masajid across the country with this organization is because it is affecting so many Muslim families. I won't ask anybody to raise their hands. I've done that already in my program last night, but whenever I go to these programs, I ask people who know someone here with disability or special need of any kind. And 95 percent of the room raises their hand. These are Muslim gatherings. My dear brothers and sisters, disability can impact all of us. You can be born with a disability. You can become injured and become disabled. You can have an illness that can cause a disability. It is not discriminatory of any kind of age. So may Allah SWT protect us all, I mean. We do not want to face this, but if Allah wills it for us or our family, we may well be tested in our lifetime with disability. That's why it's an important topic for all of us to know and to understand. There are community members everywhere around this country who live with a loved one, a family member with a disability. There are 600,000 Muslims with disabilities in America. One of the things that we are doing as an organization, our organization is named MUHSEN, M-U-H-S-E-N. Muslims understanding and helping special education needs. Who here has heard of Sheikh Omar Suleiman? Most of us, masha'Allah. He is our scholar. He is our chef. He is also the founder of the organization. So Sheikh Omar Suleiman took this initiative and asked that we work with the communities around the country and work with the masjid and start to make our masjids more accommodating and welcoming for people with disabilities. And that means more than just a parking space. And that means more than just the physical space and accommodation to come in. It means we need to make room in our hearts for these people. It means we need to understand what are their spiritual needs. If someone has a disability, do we exclude them from knowledge or deen? Or do we give them access just like we do everybody else? So in some cases it might just be a ramp or a doorway or an entrance. In some cases it might be a sign language interpreter for somebody who is deaf. In some cases it might be a special kind of class. And MUHSEN is actually a river range weekend school programs where a lot of the staff who is here today, they teach people with disabilities about the deen, how to pray, different wads. I mean it depends on the goals of the families, but we customize the education for them. Why are they any less Muslim or less deserving? They are not. They are our brothers and sisters. And SubhanAllah, if we can't provide it for them, then where do these people go? So Alhamdulillah, there is a need, maybe, of knowledge that there are some masjids who are going to be at the forefront. Mashallah, MCC East Bay. And the tireless efforts, I know there's a team, but I really, really need to mention the brother Munir Safi has been a really, really huge part of this. He is the facilitator at this masjid who we have been working with for months. You may not even know all the efforts and all the emails and all the discussions, Mashallah, going back and forth. So some of the things that MCC East Bay has achieved in Silver Certification, because this certification is made easy for you, it's done in three parts. And we just provide a checklist, which I have up here and we'll have that on our table if anybody wants to look. But the Silver Certification is, first of all, have someone dedicated in your masjid who's going to work on this. Very simple. So brother Munir was that person. Have somebody take a look at accessibility. Like I said, the physical stuff. Can you get in the building? Can you get a wheelchair into the bathroom? Can you get crunches? Can you get a walker? Once that person is in the bathroom, can they make Wadoo? You know, I've been to so many, I travel almost every week across the country and Alhamdulillah, I have the opportunity to see a lot of masjids. And I've even had people ask me, did these people really need to make Wadoo? And what if they want to make Wadoo? We have to make Wadoo when we pray. So let's ease the way for them. Let's make it easy. So we've even looked at that. And Mashallah, you have the foot shower, the foot sprayers, you have stools that are movable in your bathroom. These are things we looked at. I mean, we did it all with emails and pictures, but that's the level of detail. So if someone came in who had a mobility disability, which some of the kids just heard about in the workshop, we could move that stool, we could wheel the person in, they could wheel themselves, and they could have access to making Wadoo properly. So the bathroom accessibility, the entrances, the parking, having somebody put the programs out there on the website, letting the community know. So some of you, and I won't embarrass anyone, some of you may have known before today that MCC East Bay was working with Muslim because there was an announcement on the website that was part of what we did together. There was a survey that was put out. So on your website, if you haven't seen it, there's a link that asks families, what do you need? What are the accommodations? Because we want to give you what you need. And out of those survey results, the Muslim leaders can serve you better. These are the things that were in the certification along with an awareness event, which there was a table set up. I know a couple of months ago, the Brail Quran has been on display. We just did an awareness event last night. So the completion of two awareness events have now put you into the gold category of Hamdallah. Training the youth is part of the certification. And one of the biggest things is, we all know, we say it all the time, the youth are the seeds of the future. Let's teach now because these people are going to become the leaders of the communities. Let's have them understand. We just did a sensitivity training, how to speak to someone with a disability, how to react, how to express. All of these things are important. And now with the youth training done, that's also taken care of in terms of the gold certification. So with all that said, on behalf of Muslim, on behalf of Sheikh Omar Suleiman, on behalf of the entire team, we want to commend the work of MCC Eastway, East Bay. We want to say to all of you for your support, get more involved, offer your help, sign up to volunteer. And it's a community effort. There are many more programs up ahead in the other levels of certification. But once you achieve these levels, you'll see people coming into the community that you've never seen before. I myself have started engaging more in my community because I am a mother of a child with a disability. So when these programs go into place, I can now access the mosjid and I can now make my whole family feel like we can do this. We can attend this event. And there's so many families like that. You probably know them, encourage them to come because this is a loving, welcoming place. And with that, I do want to give the award to brother Asif Muhammad from Zarina. Sister Zarina, could you please come up? And on behalf of MCC East Bay, we would like to award you, you all for the hard work. It is a big honor here because there is no other mosjid in the state of California that has been most certified yet. You are pioneers. This is an innovative new idea for our community, but it is not difficult. Right, brother Zarina? It's not difficult. Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Allah puts power in this work. This is something that you take a small step and the blessings start pouring. These individuals with disabilities aren't gems in our community. And you are serving them. And in the words of Sheikh Omar, they will intercede for you on the day of judgment, insha'Allah. You will make their life easy here, insha'Allah, they will testify for you then. This is something very important. We are serving people of general. So congratulations, Jazakallah Khair. And we look forward to keep our connections and we keep working together to achieve more and more with Islam. And please spread the word throughout California because people should follow the lead at MCC East Bay. Masha'Allah, we are hearing of a couple of masjids. Thanks to brother Muneer's introductions who are now interested. We can be announced that MCA Santa Clara has just started the certification process with us too, Alhamdulillah. And that's, you know, enjoying good. It's telling other communities we can do this and it's, you know, helping people all over. So with that I will end, but Jazakallah Khair, please see us at the table if there are any questions.


This is Think Tech Hawaii, more specifically, this is Global Connections, I'm Jay Fiedel, the handsome young man is Michael Davis, and he joins us from New York. Am I right? Yeah. So, Michael, you know, three things have happened with respect to civil liberties in Hong Kong in the recent past. The first is that a fellow named John Lee was elected in a what looked like a fake election as I guess he succeeds the chief executive of Hong Kong, and he's a plant.  I find that interesting. I want to talk to you about that. And finally, the humanitarian relief fund trustees and five pro-democracy leaders in Hong Kong, and we have their names, were arrested under the national security law for, and this is my favorite part. For allegedly colliding, colluding, colluding with foreign forces. Now that's all really interesting, and it all happened in a fairly short, expansive time. What is going on these days in Hong Kong and civil liberties? Well, really, it's a tragic story. The government pretends that, well, business as usual. We're just getting a few bad apples here and so on. When they passed the national security law, as you know, we've talked about this before in mid-2020. And they act like, well, it's not going to, you know, change Hong Kong dramatically, but it has. And it's aggressively enforced. One wonders why so aggressively? I mean, you can pick a few bad apples as it were, and everyone will get the message. But I kind of think that Beijing is calling the shots under this national security law. Beijing sets up in really contrary to what it seems to say in the basic law of Hong Kong, which was passed many years ago, that the mainland departments would not interfere in Hong Kong. Well, they set up an entire mainland department called the Office for Safeguarding National Security. And that staffed, it's got a huge building in Hong Kong, staff of, I don't know how many people, lots of people. And then they set up special units of the police just to focus on enforcing national security. And of course, most of us would think there was really, there was some public order issues, but not really anybody in a position to threaten the national security of China. But in any case, that's how they branded all opposition as a national security threat. And they've, one of the things that strikes me, especially in looking at the long list of people being arrested this past week, a 90 year old Cardinal, Catholic Cardinal, is that there's a bit of score satellite going on here. They're going after some of their older enemies, their older critics, people who have tried for years and pushed and conjoaled them to carry out their obligations under that basic law, which was a kind of liberal constitutional order. That was the characteristic that Hong Kong always had. And so these people have seen Beijing slowly kind of eroding those commitments and interfering more and more and they've been opposing it over the years. And it all, all in accordance with law, they, the protests that were had were nonviolent in all of these past years and so on, and largely ignored by Beijing. So it seems that. And the trustees who were arrested were a very prestigious group. Oh, yeah. Humanitarian trust that existed for a long time, senior leaders of the community, who were well respected in every corner. That really makes it all the worst. Absolutely. One of them was a former Bishop of Hong Kong, the highest Catholic official in Hong Kong for several years. One is a very prominent barrister, a very old friend of mine, Margaret, the Bishop is Cardinal Joseph Zen. There's a singer who basically sings songs about Hong Kong and kind of kind of an activist in a way for the protests that were occurring. And so you got a singer, a cleric, a lawyer, a professor. And these people ran a fund to provide legal aid services and some humanitarian help to protesters over 10,000 protesters were arrested. So this is basically the most fundamental value in Hong Kong has always been the rule of law. And at the heart of the rule of law is the right to provide a criminal defense. But now this fund, first it was attacked about nearly a year ago and forced to disband. Because, you know, when Beijing starts attacking you, they either in the in the probe aging press, and then the officials start saying we're investigating the fund. Well, then the message is clear, you better wind it up and stop. And now they, they, what happened was the professor, one of the guys was going to go take up a job in Italy. So he went to the airport and then immediately they went and arrested all of them, I guess they were fearful that they would leave Hong Kong and apparently they have plans to to prosecute them. So this, I mean they'd all been arrested taken in once before but released. But it's this time they're arrested with these collusion charges. So, so this is kind of what's happening and and this fund, I don't think posed a threat to anyone. It simply provided the kind of services that we all respect. And so what seems to be the cases all, you know, during the 2019 protest, when a few youngsters got out of hand and we're throwing rocks and stuff. The senior members of the pro democracy camp, never use violence ever, and we're publicly speaking out against using any violence. So why are they suddenly being taken up in all of this national security net and I guess because they're settling scores they're going after people who have criticized the China's policies in Hong Kong in the past. And you know that does occur. But as I mentioned before the show I have a theory about a second purpose in all of this, and it's to send a message to everyone, them and everyone else. And my, my favorite parts why I said my favorite part is for those who were arrested for colluding with foreign forces. And that means talking to people outside the country. And I recall there is a provision in the national security law, which makes it a crime to do that. You can't even talk about so essentially this is a war against against the press against freedom of speech, a war against information. It's an attempt to control all the information. All right. So that's, that's what it's come out to be. And it seems to go way beyond any threat to national security. There was a public order problem in the 2019 protest because of the police actually what happened was on the streets, the police were being very aggressive. And I would assume, you know, again, all you do is guess because, because this is all opaque, but they were being very aggressive and people were singing on the evening news and everybody got angry because the police tactics were way out of line for many things Hong Kong and ever experienced. And so people are shown. Well, yeah, not many, but any case there were people being beaten up a lot. I did some interviews in late 2019, because we did a report on Hong Kong. And when I spoke to defense lawyers they mentioned that almost all their clients had some injuries that I told them how many what percent they were guessing like 60 70% so people were getting beat up when they're arrested had their heads rammed into the pavement and then when they're in custody as well. So, so this is that the sort of youngster violence that the government likes to showcase was actually a small minority. Two million people marched on the street during the 2019 protest without any violence. And so a few hothead youngsters watching what the police were doing. We're sort of mimicking it in their own behavior by throwing rocks and bricks and things, but to use that as an excuse to basically take away all civil liberties in Hong Kong, hardly seem to justify to think that the protesters must be very intimidating for anyone. You know, and it reminds me your description of the street scene reminds me of some of the early protests in Moscow to to Moscow and Putin's invasion of Ukraine. I think you could compare, you know, the deep the degrading of civil liberties in Hong Kong as against the degrading of civil liberties in Russia right now. Well, I think it's a similar sort of a playbook at least that you you basically grab off the streets anyone who offers opposition, and then you try to control information. And in the case of Russia and the case of mainland China. They have complete control over the media. So we know as is widely reported that Russian people are hearing some Putin version of what's going on in Ukraine. Although some reports today suggest that some people were starting to push back against that in the media business but nonetheless that's kind of what people are spoon fed and then when that's done they sort of support the government because that's all they're hearing. And Hong Kong is a bit of a different story because it still is a society where international media reporting does get in. So while mainland China's hearing one story about Russia and its invasion of Ukraine, Hong Kong people will be hearing a different story. When it comes to the crackdown in Hong Kong. Then I think that the media is there's a serious attempt to cower the local media and any other reporters on the ground, trying to cover events by using these kinds of laws about collusion and and then they even took out of mothballs, a law that had not been used for decades called a sedition law, which was a colonial sedition law. And they're using that because the national security law they passed as provisions in it that says it cannot be applied retroactively to things that took place before its date of promulgation, which was June 30 2020. So how do they go after their their enemies from the past. Well, they have two routes. One is they use that sedition law. And the other is, and I think this is what we're seeing with the humanitarian relief fund is they take your continued behavior that is your continued existence. So that fund existed beyond June 30 2020, and therefore anything and everything it does can be branded as a kind of national security threat, as some form of collusion or collusion and so on. So they found ways to go beyond this retroactive limitation by, by either using evidence from before to punish what comes after, and then also saying well if you continue to exist, then you're still guilty of everything you did. And so now we know that all the prominent opposition organizations, we're talking about labor unions we're not talking about, you know, you know rebels in armed conflict we're talking about just civic groups that are honest and critical of what the government violates human rights. All of those groups have been forced to disband. We know Jimmy lies newspaper which was a so called opposition newspapers forced to disband, and in it's been reported that up to 50 organizations have disbanded. All of this community groups that could resist are shut down. So this is a lot bigger story than just, you know, a few people being arrested because it emanates out the rest is at the heart of it, but there's so much else being done to civic organizations to schools that are required to teach national security. If teachers, they're even a hotline to report your teachers, if you teacher says anything that that somebody in the pro Beijing camp doesn't like. So it really has a chilling effect across the society, and that's a tactic being used. And I think in some ways when when we in the world say, you know, hear about a Beijing model against the liberal Democratic model. There are two models being in competition. I think in some ways Hong Kong is like the, the stare, you know, the foundation sort of example that Beijing envisions as its model, that it's not like the old Soviet Union that would convert countries to But rather than it would hollow out liberal institutions in these sort of quasi Democratic or soft authoritarian societies, and in some sense Hong Kong then is an example of how that works. Yeah, well, where does it take us? I mean, it sounds like a kind of social lobotomy. If you remove all these institutions and all this, you know, creative thinking and social connection in a given society. Where does that study go? It sounds like it's a lobotomy. It sounds like it can never return or not easily. And it sounds like it's going to be a very different place from the place you knew when you live there. Yes, I mean, in some ways Hong Kong was the most vibrant society in many ways in Asia through the many years that that I've spent in Hong Kong, because it had a free press. It still had problems with the press, you know, Beijing would isolate the media not not with advertising funds or blacklist some press. If they were too critical of the regime, certainly the Apple Daily newspaper that Jimmy Lai ran, which has now been wound up, was not getting advertising from mainland companies and probably local companies as well that wanted to please Beijing. So there were ways of intimidation. But at the same time the society was so vibrant that's why two million people would show up on the street. And so it did not suffer fools well. And so if you were too complicit in Beijing's designs, then people would not respect you and we saw that in the late 2020, I think it was late 2020, remember when the district council elections were when the people voted overwhelmingly for the opposition camp as a kind of verdict on what they thought of the demonstrations that were occurring over over 2019. So, so this is I think what what you see and now this has been taken off and Asia has lost dearly for this. And when you take the obvious experience that Hong Kong has had, and you look at it in comparison where in parallel with the Xinjiang and the Uyghurs, you say when they're really setting up a statement that if you want to protest or do anything outside of our instructions, you're in deep trouble. And one of the things that comes out, you know, to me about the Jimmy Lai and the Apple news connection is that they're not only saying that you have to close down your operation. You have to disband your organization, whatever we decide is inappropriate. But you're also going to get prosecuted. And the message there is that closing it down is not enough. We never want to see it come up again. And if Jimmy Lai can go down the block and form another Apple, we're going to stop him. And we're going to show the world that we're going to stop him by arresting him. And it's not just arresting because arresting under some laws may mean a few months in jail. But under this national security law, just today, the magistrates court authorized the moving of Jimmy Lai's case to the court of first instance what was traditionally called the High Court in Hong Kong. And in that court, the charges against him can result in a sentence of life in prison. Oh, God. So by moving it, if they didn't move it, then they would face limits on how many years they could sentence him to. So removing it to a place where he could be sentenced to life in prison is what just took place this very day. That's awful. So I mean, they're good at it. You know, you have to give them credit. They're good at it. They're better than Vladimir Putin is certainly, and they don't use violence. They use this persecution under color of law approach. And although, as you mentioned, there are people who continue to protest, both in Russia and in China in Hong Kong, it seems to me they're in Hong Kong, they're good enough to really stop this. And it really has no chance of coming back. Right. There's a, there's really no protest now. I think the other day is a couple people were walking down the street. Three of them trying to protest that there's just virtually none. It takes a lot of courage to even express an opposing view. So the result is people in the media, for example, find it hard to use to be because in Asian society professors are highly affected and they're often consulted by the media to provide analysis of events and developments that are going on. But now reporters that contact me over here in New York from are doing so because they can't find anybody locally willing to speak up on these issues. It's very risky for them to do so. So this is, is a problem, not just deprive the people of hard news, but also of analysis. Yeah, well it sounds like state TV in Russia, doesn't it? It's the same kind of news control thing. And that's got to be part of the program. If you want to do an autocratic takeover, you control all the information. Let's talk about information. Here we are, you and me on a formidable news organization, Think Tech Hawaii. And we're discussing this freely. We're discussing it within the First Amendment of the United States, such as still exist. And we are discussing it for the world to hear because Think Tech dreams everywhere. At the same time, in order for you to get this information, I had to leave China. Somebody had to keep you current so you could keep us current. And you're not keeping us current only on Think Tech. You're keeping us current in all your writings, your university appearances, your panel programs and webinars. So if you get out there and speaking in various forums, is that for I, and therefore, you know, the information that you were getting from China is being propagated in a number of places. So how dangerous is this for them, you know, with whom you speak in China, in Hong Kong, and for you, a person who knows theoretically you're in violation of the National Security Law, aren't you? Don't answer that. Don't answer that. Well, yeah, theoretically, you as well. But I'm not going back anytime soon, I'll tell you that. The National Security Law applies worldwide. And so if you're bringing a hatred or contempt to Hong Kong's government or China's government, then you might be accused of that. It's a problem, but a lot of this stuff, you know, this is the sort of beauty and tragedy of a quasi open society. Places like North Korea have probably the worst human rights violations in the world, but very little of it is reported because nobody can go there and report on it. In societies that as I mentioned earlier, these sort of soft authoritarian or quasi democratic societies with liberal constitutional structures and promises of human rights and free speech, even while they're often violated, I mean, carried out in the breach they're violated a lot. A lot of information can get out of those societies, international reporting, and so on. And then of course some people leaving and coming abroad and talking about what they experienced, and so on. So they leak, these societies leak a lot of information. And I think that's kind of what almost all of us work with we can watch it from day to day. I told you earlier that in the courts now when they hear these hearings, they forbid the reporters from reporting anything except the outcome. So they're trying, they try to plug the leaks, but it's hard to do so at 100%. Because a lot of what's happening can be combined with, you know, legal training that you and I have to sort of understand what's happening. What the reporters are allowed to report so we can get get a pretty good sense of, of what's happening. Now people like myself and yourself. Basically, your, your new role, I know you are a longtime practicing lawyer, but your new role at think tech is, is the media. And so you, you're basically doing your job, that's what you're doing, you're not trying to do it more than that. I'm the same, I'm an academic in my field is constitutional development and human rights. So that's what I talk about. I try to provide analysis. And that's that's kind of what one honestly has to do. And if people can't do it on the ground, then probably that's an important service because otherwise it won't be done. You know, we were talking before the show about all these elements on the news cycle, all these news streams. And, you know, it is depressing to hear all these, a number of streams, including Hong Kong and Russia and other places, several other places in the world where autocrats have emerged, where constitutional law has become a joke. And of course, where you have war crimes, atrocities, you have manipulation of information, you have imprisonment and violation of any sense of civil liberties. And it just strikes me and the reason I say it bothers me emotionally is that I see it getting worse. I see it in more places.  And so that must affect you, too. But what is your reaction to seeing all these news streams, including especially Hong Kong with so many other places where we have autocrats who are destroying democracy.  So I'm constantly called upon to try to train youngsters, young people to be able to analyze and to cover these issues. And the human rights work a lot of young lawyers think it's all about going to court. When human rights are being violated on this level, it's rarely about going to court. It's about publicity. It's about putting it out there and constantly the old jargon was naming and shaming, but putting it out there and these regimes kind of help you because they're sometimes so outlandish. You know, like Putin, when people discover thousand dead bodies around the city, well, all that's all staged. You know, that's his claim. So, so it's so transparently false so that the government there's Nazis. No one really believes that probably even his supporters don't believe that they probably think it's clever argument. That's about it. So I think that's kind of the way this works. So when a regime goes too far and extreme measures. What we're seeing in Hong Kong, I think is that the nub of it is they're saying, well, Hong Kong is still the same that freedoms are protected. You as Kerry lab that's the current chief executive said you just need to know where the red line is that that's a famous line. Maybe a triple on time. Yeah, that's right. So I think that the transparency sometimes is of, you know, what they're saying is clear. And so the trick is to get it out there and get people to understand it. You hope and sometimes it's a futile hope, but you hope that eventually, you know, the right truth that someone would say will prevail and better decisions will be made. But but it's not it's not very optimistic at the moment. Yeah, well, you know, a lot of this has got to do with technology information technology, although social media is a great weapon for these order crats to use for Beijing to use on Hong Kong. But you know, social media works in two ways on the street. And you can you can have the protesters speak to social media, communicate, you know, create a mesh of protest electronically. And I think that might be happening to some limited degree in all these places. I mean, for example, yesterday there was a TV program in Moscow was being broadcast to the country and some retired Russian general made a speech in the middle of the TV program saying that the war in Ukraine was wrong. And there were war crimes happening and made these statements against Putin. I'm not sure where he is now. He could be a Lubionka prison right now, but it's like that woman who ran behind the newscaster with a sign said stop the war. But you have these little spurts of protest and they seem most effective when they are on the media. Most effective when they are in social media or electronically disseminated. My question to you is, you think that'll increase you think it's effective. You think it can turn this around. Well, this is the is the hope and that's why I'm saying, if you're outside of there, and this story is told and you're dedicated to telling the story and getting the truth out. Then you make it at least a little bit more viable for someone inside to push back that there's some, you know, support for what the story that they know is happening. They can find alternative sources of information, usually using VPNs to get around the state media. But it but it is so important that the story be told, just as you're doing right now. It may seem like you're far away, and we'll have little impact but it matters. What we say in the classroom, it matters what's reported and so on and the analysis that's provided. Well, I want to add a point to that or at least ask you about a point that seems to compliment that. And that is that we are speaking right now to a public lot of viewers. And, you know, it takes a while for streaming information to actually stream and reach its reach its highest destination in the world. And speaking, if you look at our stats, we're speaking to, to some extent, Hawaii, to some extent, the mainland US in smaller fractions, we're speaking to Europe and Asia. And it'll keep going, it'll be out there for a while and somebody may not know about it or see it or feel that it's worth viral, you know, reproduction for months. But my feeling is my question is, if everyone is streaming like this, does it have an effect beyond the immediate market. Is a show like this, or you're teaching in the University of India, or your your writings and teachings in the US. Is that likely to get beyond the immediate market. I think it shapes the general political culture. But the problem we face is that the other side is speaking to, and they're pushing back and they, they find an audience just today is reading how Orban and hungry that he's widely admired by a lot of people in certain political sectors in America.  He wants illiberal democracy. And so that's the challenge today. And then a lot of people who won't hear you because their information is in a bubble that only says things that they want to hear. How do you reach them and I think this is the biggest challenge that we're facing with free speech today is, is this problem of disinformation within these information bubbles, and how can we respond to it and still be committed to free speech. It's, it's a kind of a contradiction there. So we're drawing those lines of where we will control that kind of thing is has been proven very difficult. We have to be on my about it though I was telling you before the show that think tank has had a remarkable increase because of the covert and zoom model we've created during coven. We have a remarkable increase in the in the places in the world where our guests and hosts originate. We have shows that originated in Africa and Latin America and in Europe. We have lots of guests and very disparate places all over the world we have really thousands of people who appear remotely and so, maybe I'm taking this too far but it seems to me that in the world of zoom, the post coven. In the coven zoom world we live in. You know, this process that you're talking about this process of proliferating social media and other, I don't want to say underground but other other electronic protest is probably in dynamic. It's probably growing. And if you look again in a year or two or three, you find more of this of the globalism. Okay, of electronic protest. What do you think. Of course, and even as a professor when I used to go to a campus and give a lecture, I could have 20 people in the audience or 30 whatever depends on you know this this situation what I'm talking about. But now a couple hundred is not unusual, because I do it online I have don't have to go anywhere. So I think that's very evident. The problem of course is is like I said it's people on both sides of all of these things. And Putin is controlling a lot of information to millions of people. So the challenge is how do you get, you know, reasonable analysis past all the obstacles and and have a chance to respond to and discredit disinformation that's being passed it affects the election in America. It affects everybody everywhere. So the Hong Kong story is in a way a kind of classic repression, where you just intimidate everybody into silence. And most of us also face many challenges in this regard, and in on the use of this media you're talking about. Well clearly Michael you've got to keep on doing it. And we have to keep on talking to you. I appreciate that. I want to get back to Hawaii but it's something that I'm trying to work in. I'm looking forward to that Michael Michael Michael C. Davis here on Think Tech on global connections talking about Hong Kong and the things going on there, which will undoubtedly continue and we'll continue in our discussion with him. Thank you Michael. Thank you. Mahalo.


Student banned from prom due to $400 dress. It was supposed to be a magical night of dancing and laughing. She even hoped for a good night's kiss from her prom date who she had a huge crush on. But she knew it was too good to be true. Her prom dream now lay in shattered fragments. Every part of her was fighting to hold back tears. She had no idea what she did to deserve this. Her heart pounded as she walked through the doors. Between school and her part-time job at the local pizzeria, 16-year-old Josie Reason barely had enough hours left in the day to finish her homework and maybe sneak in a bit of wonderfully mind-numbing YouTube videos. She was a busy girl but she still had enough time to dream about her upcoming prom. However, that particular evening would see her weeping for justice. She had barely stepped through her bedroom door and flopped down on her bed when a loud ding-dong echoed through the house. With her parents at work, she answered the door. It was a delivery guy from her work. He handed over a large pizza. Confused, Josie stared at the box. She didn't order anything. Nor did she have the slightest idea of what was hiding inside. Josie tried to explain to her work friend that she didn't order anything. She tried to give the pizza box back to him but he refused to take it. I'm not even hungry. Honestly, give it to the guys, Josie said. Frustrated, the pizza guy said, it's from Christian. He asked me to deliver it to you. Just eat it later. He shoved it into her hands and left. Josie's face immediately brightened. She raced back inside and excitedly opened the pizza box. Her heart leaped as she read what was scrawled on the inside of the lid. I know it's cheesy, but. Prom. Christian. She had a crush on Christian for so long and now it looked like he had a crush on her too.  This was going to be a prom like no other, she thought. And she was definitely right about that. Christian and Josie went to different high schools. Christian invited Josie to his high school prom so she had to learn fast on what was deemed as acceptable dress wear. Being from a Christian school, Christian had to put up with more rules on dress and behavior etiquette than most other boys his age and the same would be expected from his prom date, Josie. That's where it all went downhill. Josie knew her public school already had a long list of don'ts when it came to prom dresses. Nothing too revealing and nothing too long that would cause a safety hazard, but she was far out of her depth with Christian school. She had no idea what Christian's ultra conservative religious school was going to ask for. Still, she was up for the challenge. Unaware of how hard things would get. The very next day, Josie went out with her mom to go dress hunting. She told her mom all about Christian and how happy she was that he asked her out to prom and how she needed to find the perfect dress. Her mom helped her pick out some dresses to try on and offered her opinion. Josie trusted her mom's eye for fashion so she loved having her there but as the day passed, they still hadn't found the one. Maybe it was an omen of what was to come. Josie continued to go dress hunting with her friends, but as they found their dream dress, Josie was still struggling to find hers. It was hard shopping for an ultra conservative dress in today's times. Nothing she found seemed to flatter her frame. It was becoming mission impossible until she entered an expensive boutique on the edge of town. It took several shops and many days of fitting rooms and disappointments before Josie found something that followed the rules but still made her look stunning. But there were two problems, the dress had questionable fabric on its side panels and it was expensive. Josie and her mom took pictures of the dress and sent them to Christian's mother. But she had another idea. Christian's mom suggested to Josie's mom to send the picture the school administration too, just in case her opinion was wrong. Josie and her mom did as he suggested and waited for a answer before they bought the dress. They asked the shop owner to put the dress on hold until they could get confirmation that it was appropriate. Christian's mom thought it was fine and when Josie and her mom heard back from the school with an echoed approval, she was ecstatic. Now, they could finally move forward. They went back to the boutique and signed off on its $400 price tag. It was a steep price but one Josie's mom was happy to pay. After all, it was such an important right of passage. If only they knew what they were paying for. Now that Josie found her dress, she could relax and focus on the other aspects of getting ready for prom. She booked herself a spray tan and searched online for what she wanted her hair and makeup to look like. She wanted to be different from the other girls. Most of them, like her best friend, Sophie, who was also going to the Christian school's prom decided on the natural makeup look with her hair down. But Josie wanted to do more, a decision she'd later regret. It was finally prom day and Josie felt like she was sailing on cloud nine. Christian looked dashing when he came to collect her. They took some pictures at her house before she waved goodbye from her adoring mom. The thrill of the evening so far was all Josie hoped it would be. She felt like she was taking one more step into adulthood and she couldn't have been happier with who ended up beside her. But it wasn't just himself he brought. Besides a lovely corsage, Christian hired a private car and driver which was theirs for the entire evening. It was more than she cold have imagined. Butterflies rose in her stomach and her cheeks turned bright red as Christian held her hand and helped her in. But if she had known what was coming, she would have told the driver to turn around. Josie and Christian made their way into the reception lobby. People lined up to show their tickets and make their way into the main dance hall. That's when Josie saw a familiar face. Oh my god. Josie, she squealed. Josie bumped into a friend she hadn't seen in months since she moved school last semester. Josie was so happy to know another person here. She knew it was going to be an unforgettable night and she was right. As Christian handed over their tickets, Josie marveled at the amazing decorations. It was so much better than what her public school could ever afford. They were about to enter the elaborate hall when one of the administrators quickly came over. He was scowling. He pointed at her dress and suddenly, disaster struck. You can't come in wearing that, he pointed. He had a horrified look on his face. Confused, Josie followed his finger to where he was pointing. She lifted her arms up and realized he was pointing at the side panels of the dress where the unusual fabric was. I, I can't, Josie stammered, why, she said. All the joy that had built up immediately drained from her body. Even Christian's eyes turned wide and confused. They both tried to explain that the school had already approved the dress. But even with the screenshots of the conversations and a call from her mother, the old men gave them a ridiculous choice. Meanwhile, Josie felt all eyes on her. Everyone around her began to notice the problem and began to look at her dress. While some showed sympathy faces, others tried to muffle a giggle. Josie felt HUMI-lated. She tried to ignore the onlookers as she told the teacher that he wasn't being fair. She double-checked with the school if this dress was safe before attending but he wasn't having any of it. He told her that she could either wear a date's jacket all night or run to Walmart to buy a belt to go around it. She felt ridiculed. All the happiness Josie had felt that night was replaced with soul-crushing sadness. $400, down the drain. The worst part was that no one watching all of this was stepping up to defend them. Everyone wanted to get inside and enjoy prom. No one wanted to risk making the old men any grumpier and having their tickets revoked. But they had already asked, and the school said the dress was okay. It was all over two mesh panels around her waist.  Even her mother's rage sent smoke billowing out of the phone when she called in the update. Josie wasn't being let in.  Crescent also called his mom. Both moms were outraged but they couldn't do anything. The school had decided that Josie was banned unless she did something about her dress. But Christian had decided on something too and he wasn't about to let Josie cry any more tears. Forget this. Christian said, pulling Josie out of the line. I have a much better idea. Christian was determined to try his best to salvage the night they had planned. If they couldn't do prom, maybe they could do the next best thing. Dinner and a movie, they still had a private driver for the night after all. Her heart fluttered when he made her a promise. He promised her that they would do it all again at Josie's prom, where the dress was more than acceptable. There was no way she couldn't show off such a beautiful dress. It didn't matter how angry their moms got or how many social media tweets supported them, the school wasn't going to budge. So, they would take control and made the best of a bad situation.


It's time for the Lawn Jean Chronoscope. A television journal of the important issues of the hour, brought to you every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. A presentation of the Lawn Jean Wettner Watch Company, maker of Lawn Jean, the world's most honored watch, and Wettner, distinguished companion to the world-honored Lawn Jean. Good evening. This is Frank Knight. May I introduce our co-editors for this edition of the Lawn Jean Chronoscope? They are CBS News Correspondents Larry LeSere and Lou Choffee. Our distinguished guest for this evening is Milton Rosen, head of rocket development for Naval Research Laboratories in Washington. You've often heard it said that science has far out-distance man's political and social development. But because of the mystery that surrounds science, one has a feeling that tremendous developments are in the offing which might catch us unawares. And one of those mysteries, of course, surrounds the space rocket. Mr. Rosen, as head of the development of the space rocket, you've shot a rocket higher than any other man has done. Now, do you think men will soon be liberated from the bonds of Earth and travel around in space? Well, Mr. LaSere, I think they will be liberated, as you say, eventually. How soon? I do not know. Well, how will this come about? Will a man go up in a rocket? Can that be done now? Well, I think that first we will explore with instruments. At the present time, rockets have gone up almost to 200 miles, what men have only gone up to about 15 miles. And the same story will be repeated in outer space. First instruments will be sent up in satellites, later men, and so on with the exploration of the moon and other planets. That model of a rocket that is on the desk, is that the famous Navy Viking, which you've shot off, the single-stage rocket? Yes, that's a model of a Viking. And that is not for military use but for exploration in space, is it? Yes, it's devoted to upper-atmosphere research. The nose and good part of the rocket is packed full of instruments to study the sun, to determine the pressure, composition of the atmosphere, to study cosmic rays, to study the ionosphere, all the things that interest scientists. Mr. Rosen, you talk about rockets. What is the difference between a rocket and a guided missile and a jet, these terms we hear so frequently? Well, guided missile is probably the broadest term and there are rocket guided missiles and jet guided missiles. The jet, as used in jet aircraft, is really an air-breathing engine. It's an engine that operates within the Earth's atmosphere and therefore would always fly relatively close to the Earth's surface. A rocket, however, doesn't need air from the atmosphere. It carries its own oxygen and it can operate outside the atmosphere and therefore it is the type of vehicle, the type of propulsion that will eventually be used in outer space. Mr. Rosen, you said that you couldn't say how soon man would be traveling in space, but do you think that the generation which is now watching space travel on TV will go out into space in their lifetime? Well, it's hard to say. I think they'll see a tremendous advance and a lot of this depends on how hard we work at it. I feel it's inevitable and that our youngsters will see a lot more than we have. Mr. Rosen, I'm searching for definition tonight. What is a satellite? A satellite is a vehicle that orbits or circles around the Earth continuously. The satellites that have been spoken about recently instrumented satellites that are being studied would say travel about 1,000 miles above the surface of the Earth and therefore they would complete an orbit or circuit around the Earth in about two hours. In other words, if you shot a rocket outside of the Earth's gravitational pull and not into the gravitational pull of another planet it would stay there and travel around the Earth as one of our satellites? Well, any satellite would be almost entirely under the influence of the Earth and the pulls of the other planets would be so minute that they wouldn't matter. The pull of the moon would probably be more important to a satellite about the Earth. Well, if you think space travel, and I think that implies that human beings would be traveling, is not in the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, how about this idea of shooting a rocket so high that it would go out of the Earth's gravitational pull and become a satellite? Is that in the foreseeable future? Oh, yes. I think such vehicles within our grasp now and that if a concerted effort were made that we could in very short time have an instrumented satellite circling around the Earth. Well, do you think it would be any great advantage or any possible danger to the rest of the world if one nation or another did build a satellite or a platform perhaps that was circling the Earth and could watch the rest of the world go by from their advantageous position? Well, I don't think there would be any danger. The possible military use of a satellite has been greatly overrated and even this point that you raise of watching other people is going to be very difficult. The first satellites will be used mainly for scientific experiments and collecting data about the region, studying cosmic rays. How exactly would you get such a satellite up above the Earth? Well, it would be a rocket and as most people have said it would probably be a three stage rocket. Starting with a large rocket which then pushes a smaller rocket, the middle rocket to a high altitude, then this one takes over and finally the third or last rocket would have enough speed to climb into an orbit and stay there. Do you think it would be possible at any point to station men up there to have like a kind of a roving city circling the Earth? Well, this is a great distance away from an instrumented satellite and the practical problems of getting any large amount of material up to a satellite orbit are the things that make it very difficult. Now, these are what you are learning about now in these shoots from Sandy Air Base and White Sands and the shooting of your Viking rocket. Is that what you're learning about now, the difficulties of transporting men up to outer space? No, not necessarily men. We're learning about the difficulties of operating rockets and the difficulties of making equipment work. But we learn enough about that to show us how difficult it would be to maintain a man up there, to maintain all the equipment necessary to give him air, to keep him from freezing or roasting, to protect him against cosmic rays and radiation, to protect him against weightlessness. Mr. Rosen, would you think you'd have any difficulties in getting volunteers to go up in a rocket even now? I doubt it. A lot of people are volunteered to go up. Then why don't you send a man up there then? Well, we see little useful purpose in doing it. So much effort would have to be expended on protecting that one man that we could more profitably send instruments to do the work. And these instruments do tell you what is taking place in the upper atmosphere at the moment, as well as a man could? Probably better, because you can do a variety of things with instruments. A man cannot count cosmic rays, but a guy or counter can. Mr. Rosen, what's the difference between your research rocket and the rockets used for military purposes as weapons? They are usually more rugged, whereas our rocket is built primarily for efficiency to reach very high altitudes. Also, the Viking isn't built particularly to hit any target. Its object is to reach the highest altitude and to send back information to the ground by radio. Mr. Rosen, what is the most difficult problem you have to overcome in, let's say, going to the moon? Well, that's a hard question to answer. I think we're faced with a multitude of problems, all of which have practical difficulties. In theory, none of these problems are really very difficult. It's when you have to build something to do the job that you run into a lot of practical trouble. Mr. Rosen, one question I would like answered is, why go to the moon at all? What practical benefits can we get from going to the moon? Well, it's very hard to say. There are certainly people who will see benefit just in the exploration. The benefit to science, I think there's a lot to be said for discovery, finding out new things. After all, the upper atmosphere is now the last earthly frontier. If we want to discover new regions, we have to go away from the earth. Mr. Rosen, you're a member of the American Rocket Society. Do you think it would be worthwhile to start a crash program like the one we employed to build the atom bomb in order to build a rocket that would go to the moon? As many of us would like to see such a program if we do any wishful thinking, I think we should take a more gradual approach. I think we should concentrate on instrumented rockets, on learning more about the problems before we attempt any big program for, say, the exploration of the moon. Mr. Rosen, the fact that you are a space expert leads me to a question I think I have time for. That's the question about flying saucers. They've been reports that they've been seeing some sort of objects in the sky in Italy now. Now, as a space expert, do you think there's anything in these flying saucer stories? Well, I think the people are seeing something. What it is, I don't know. And there have been many explanations, any one of which I think might be plausible. One of the explanations, of course, is that these saucers are visitors from outer space. Until there is some tangible proof of that, I can't accept that as the final explanation. I see, but you do think there is something to it. But I want to thank you very much for being so interesting in asking so many questions tonight, Mr. Rosen. Thank you. The opinions expressed on the Lone Gene Chronoscope were those of the speakers. The editorial board for this edition of the Lone Gene Chronoscope was Larry Lassur and Lou Choffee. Our distinguished guest was Milton Rosen, head of rocket development for Naval Research Laboratories in Washington. To give a Lone Gene Watch this Christmas is to give just about the finest watch made anywhere in the whole world, and yet unbelievably, a Lone Gene Watch is not costly. There are many outstanding Lone Gene Watches perfect for Christmas giving priced as low as 70-150. Lone Gene's ladies watches are superb examples of the jeweler's art. 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