2021
September
29
Wednesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

September 29, 2021
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Dr. Joshua Miele lost his eyesight at age 4. But as an adult, he’s been finding ways to help blind and visually impaired people perceive the world through touch and sound.

On Tuesday, Dr. Miele was among the 25 people, including artists, poets, historians, and scientists, selected for a $625,000 MacArthur Fellowship, the annual “genius grant.”

Dr. Miele has been a pioneer in designing and adapting tech to make the world more accessible. “I come up with cool ideas to solve problems for blind people,” he told KQED radio in San Francisco in 2011. 

What kinds of cool ideas? He’s leveraged the power of a smartphone, Bluetooth, and tiny accelerometers to build the wireless WearaBraille, a pair of high-tech gloves that turn any surface into a Braille keyboard. 

He also developed a web-based program that generates tactile street maps of any location, and they can be printed on paper at home with a Braille embosser.

Now a researcher at Amazon Lab126, Dr. Miele helped create the “show and tell” feature on Amazon Echo devices. Hold up a food product in front of the Echo camera and ask Alexa to identify it.

“As we emerge from the shadows of the past two years, this class of 25 Fellows helps us reimagine what’s possible,” MacArthur Fellows managing director Cecilia Conrad said in a statement. “They demonstrate that creativity has no boundaries.”

Dr. Miele has spent most of his lifetime defying limitations. Now he’s getting some recognition – and a bunch of cash – to fuel his creative juices.


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Today's stories

And why we wrote them

A deeper look

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Patterns

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For a century, the vast forests of the American South were treated mostly as economic assets to be harvested. Our reporter looks at a quest to save a forest of longleaf pines, which suggests an emerging shift toward stewardship and valuing biodiversity.

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Filmmaker St. Clair Detrick-Jules' latest project is "My Beautiful Black Hair: 101 Natural Hair Stories From the Sisterhood," a book she created from interviews with women and photos she took of them.

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The Monitor's View

One of the world’s most courageous people of 2021 has to be Ethiopia’s departing minister for women. On Monday, Filsan Abdullahi Ahmed resigned her post after trying to end the use of rape as a weapon of war in Ethiopia’s 11-month internal conflict. Her own government’s forces, along with rebel fighters in the Tigray region and soldiers from neighboring Eritrea, are accused by the United Nations and others of mass sexual violence against innocent civilians.

“Any situation that compromises my ethics is contrary to my convictions and values, and betraying these beliefs is a breach of trust to myself and our citizens,” she said in her resignation notice.

Last February, she boldly confirmed that rape was “undoubtedly” being committed in Tigray, the first official confirmation of such crimes. She then pressured Ethiopia’s attorney general to deliver justice. In April, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed admitted that sexual assault had been committed in the war. By August, the attorney general said more than 30 soldiers had been convicted and sentenced for rape and another 25 had been charged

But not much has been done since, perhaps the main reason for her resignation. In addition, the United States has become alarmed at the violence and humanitarian disaster in Ethiopia. On Sept. 18, President Joe Biden ordered sanctions to be imposed on Ethiopian officials if they don’t move to end the war. “I am shocked by reports of massacres, rapes and sexual assaults,” the president said in a statement. On Sept. 24, the U.S. House passed legislation that would force the administration to determine whether Ethiopia’s and Eritrea’s actions in the Tigray region constitute genocide.

Ms. Filsan was appointed as minister for women, children, and youth in 2020 because of her campaign for reconciliation among the country’s more than 90 ethnic groups. With a population of roughly 110 million, African’s second most populous country has a long history of civil strife.

She is founder of the Nabad Project (nabad means peace), which uses volunteers – dubbed peace engineers – to bring different ethnic groups together for community-level dialogue to unify Ethiopia, as she said in 2019 to the Addis Standard magazine.

“I started ... the Nabad Project to show Ethiopians that [an ethnic] Somali young female can actually bring the love, harmony, and prosperity among them,” she said.

One of her approaches was to deal with post-violence social trauma, especially for women who had been raped for their ethnicity. “I have reached multiple victims [but] I hate to use the word ‘victim’ itself because it sounds people felt helpless,” she said.

Now out of office, Ms. Filsan may again return to her private work as a “peace engineer,” or what she calls turning differences into opportunities. Her resignation was an act of conscience. It was also an act of courage to rally Ethiopians to join her to work, as she calls it, “together for good.”

Editor's note: This editorial has been updated to show additional convictions of Ethiopian soldiers for rape.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

When things get turbulent or frightening, it can seem hard to find mental calm. But Christ’s timeless promise of peace offers a basis for experiencing healing, harmony, and peace of mind.


A message of love

Jon Nazca/Reuters
Lava is seen through the window of a kitchen from El Paso following the eruption of a volcano on the Canary Island of La Palma, Spain, Sept. 28, 2021. Pedro Sánchez, Spain's leader, has promised assistance to those affected by the volcano, saying, "The power of science has allowed us to save lives on La Palma, and the power of the State will allow us to rebuild the daily lives of the inhabitants of this marvelous island."
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us. Come back tomorrow: We’re working on a commentary piece about how to build trust among those with different viewpoints. 

How does a community strive to overcome the challenges of the pandemic? Join us for a free, online conversation with Monitor journalists on Tuesday, Oct. 5, titled “Overcoming adversity: How the pandemic revealed resilience.” To participate, register for the noon show or the 6 p.m. show.

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