2021
July
27
Tuesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

July 27, 2021
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Noelle Swan
Weekly Editor

When I met San, she was painting rocks with nail polish.

These were prized possessions, she told me one afternoon at a Boston soup kitchen, her little contribution of beauty to this world. She kept them tucked in a menagerie of duffels and luggage, too many to bring into a shelter. So San (I never learned her last name) slept on a stoop.

For people experiencing homelessness, keeping track of belongings is a full-time affair. Grabbing a meal or attending a job interview can mean leaving valuables unattended. Recently, communities have started to offer storage spaces for people who are precariously housed.

In San Diego, the lesson was hard won. The American Civil Liberties Union sued the city after homeless individuals lost all of their belongings in a series of law enforcement sweeps through their camps. The settlement included plans for a transitional storage facility with 300 lockers.

In Los Angeles, officials are offering storage space as part of a concerted effort to humanely relocate tent dwellers from the Venice boardwalk to temporary housing at a nearby hotel, as Francine Kiefer covered last week.

Across the country, Northampton, Massachusetts, is testing the idea on a smaller scale with 24 lockers after the mayor’s work group on panhandling interviewed individuals about their needs.

Lee Anderson, treasurer and head cook at Northampton's Manna Community Kitchen, had seen firsthand that many of the soup kitchen regulars often went stretches without coming in for a meal.

“Sometimes I wouldn’t see a guest,” he told Western Mass News, “and I would say hey how come you missed the last few meals, and sometimes it would be well, I wasn’t hungry enough to risk my stuff.”

As San told me, when you don’t have a house to call your own, a bit of “stuff” can feel like home.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

In Tunisia, a presidential power grab that seized on political deadlock and pandemic pressures is winning support from large segments of a public increasingly disillusioned on democracy.

Vincent Yu/AP/File
Tong Ying-kit arrives at court in a police van in Hong Kong, July 6, 2020. Mr. Tong, the first person to be tried under Hong Kong's sweeping national security law was found guilty of secessionism and terrorism on July 27, 2021.

Hong Kong residents tried and failed to resist the imposition by Beijing of a draconian security law in 2020. The trial of a protester has demonstrated the extent of the law’s stifling of democratic rights. 

A letter from Moscow

Can the U.S. rediscover a commitment to the truth? That’s what four police officers – who were beaten, repeatedly shocked, and crushed as they defended the Capitol Jan. 6 – pleaded for in poignant testimony today.

Carl Recine/Reuters
Megan Kalmoe (right) and Tracy Eisser of the United States compete in rowing, women's pair, at the Sea Forest Waterway during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, July 24, 2021.

Adaptability may be the name of the game for Tokyo Olympics – and not only for the athletes. Parents are finding new ways to support their Olympians.

Courtesy of Anahad Foundation
Grammy-winner Gael Hedding, who helped the Anahad Foundation develop the "Backpack Studio," sets up recording equipment for Dholru folk performers.

Folk music is a rich reflection of India’s cultures. And it’s no relic – though the music industry sometimes treats it as one. This organization aims to keep tradition alive, by helping artists make a living. 

 


The Monitor's View

In Cherokee, a Native American language, no word exists to say “goodbye” (“I’ll see you again” comes closest). But the delight experienced when looking at an indescribably cute kitten or human baby has its own special word: oo-kah-huh-sdee.

The world’s estimated 7,000 languages are precious vessels that hold unique cultural and historical knowledge. But as many as half are in danger of being lost. They continue to disappear from the world at a rapid clip.

“The loss of a language translates into the loss of an entire system of knowledge, communication, and beliefs,” points out Bolanle Arokoyo, a linguist at the University of Ilorin in Nigeria in a piece in Discover Magazine. Her country has some 500 known languages.

The world’s major languages, such as English, Mandarin, Hindi, and Spanish, continue to crowd out local tongues for a variety of reasons. Gaining access to jobs or education usually means learning the dominant language. In some cases governments have suppressed the speaking of local languages in the name of national unity.

Even though the high-tech world of computer coding has digital languages of its own, talk among those who work in that world most likely requires English as a lingua franca. That has become yet another tug away from local languages.

But more and more, that same digital technology is being used to help preserve endangered languages.

The new Google app Woolaroo uses artificial intelligence to renew interest in disappearing languages, from Yugambeh (spoken by some aboriginal people in Australia) to Nawat (western El Salvador), Louisiana Creole, and Tamazight (North Africa and the Sahara). If the user takes a photo of an object, Woolaroo will produce the name of it in one of 10 threatened languages. 

Although users can’t learn to speak the language this way (since Woolaroo only responds with nouns) it can be a fun method of satisfying curiosity and may lead to a deeper investigation.

Duolingo, a language learning app, offers instruction in some 40 languages, including many of the world’s most popular. But it also offers Scottish Gaelic, Navajo, Native Hawaiian, and most recently Yiddish.

Once widely spoken throughout central and Eastern Europe among Jewish populations, Yiddish now has fewer than 1 million speakers.

To boost interest in disappearing languages, activists around the world are using technology as well as more conventional techniques, including cultural events, contests, and language retreats.

One of the most successful has been “language nesting,” in which elders teach a language to children through songs, stories, and conversations. The technique has helped save Maori, spoken among Polynesians in New Zealand and Australia, and Native Hawaiian from being lost. Hawaiian had shrunk to about 2,000 speakers but today has more than 18,000 who can speak it.

As digital technology helps to bring the world closer together, it needn’t act only as a homogenizing force. It can also be used to preserve what makes human societies around the globe unique.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

When times get tough, learning more about the kingdom of God may not seem like a priority. But doing exactly that opens the door to solutions that meet our needs, as a man experienced firsthand after he hit rock bottom.


A message of love

David J. Phillip/AP
Germany's Damian Wierling dives in at the start of a 100-meter freestyle heat at the Summer Olympics on July 27, 2021, in Tokyo.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte and Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thanks for spending time with us today. Come back tomorrow for a trip to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where summer school is being re-imagined to include not just academic lessons but activities like gardening and even swordplay.

More issues

2021
July
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Tuesday
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