San Diego, CA
Opinion: Africa’s accomplishments are part of the flow of history
The ebbs and flows between African and other cultures are intertwined. These are conduits for the world defying their geographic designations. Culture does not end where nations, continents, peninsulas, seas and mountains end. Humanity in its quest to survive slipped past these topographic edges, chasms and heights. The norms of culture transform and connect through migration and mutation adding to our collective knowledge.
I confess to going on obsessive research quests based on dogged skepticism. I repeatedly Google the first established university in the world because I want to see how Google delivers it. Google has repeatedly designated the University of Bologna in Italy as the first and continuously operating university founded in 1088.
However, when I added keywords like “African” or “Arab,” I got different answers. Apparently, the oldest and longest continuously operating university in the world predates the University of Bologna by about 230 years. The University of al-Qarawiyyin, in Fez, Morocco, was founded in 859 A.D. by an African Muslim woman!
Within her lifetime, Fatima al-Fihri expanded the center for higher learning and research to the sciences, math and philosophy from its base of Quranic study. She also designed the graduation caps and gowns that we use today. The mortar board symbolizes the Quran or a book and the tassel is the bookmarker. Even the way we move the tassel from right to left upon graduation mimics the semitic Arabic language, also read from right to left. The thobes or gowns, draping and striped, are the dress scholars wore hundreds of years ago.
Last month, when I looked it up again, the answer changed — somewhat. The University of Bologna popped up again, but an artificial intelligence box also appeared in contradiction to the default answer confirming the University of al-Qarawiyyin as the oldest and continuously operating university.
Like an essential oil, culture and language permeate most human experiences. Humanity is not containable and everything in its paths aggregates and flows into lacy archipelagos; a network of water, land and channels much like fishing nets used from Gaza and Alexandria to Tunis and Rabat and like river people who catch the tiny Dagaa, a silvery and speckled fish, in Mali, often used as a dried staple.
Much of our human lineage is received from Africa. In fact, the African continent created the next two universities after al-Qarawiyyin: Al Azhar in Cairo in 970 A.D. and the University of Timbuktu in Africa’s modern country of Mali around 1000-1100 A.D., where it became the largest draw for scholars for several centuries. These three universities predated European ones. Are facts deliberately suppressed to concretize a Western-centered world?
Critical race theory or ethnic studies are politicized buzzwords that have been stripped of their meanings. They are imperfect terms but fit my curious research. They are meant to motivate us to learn, find histories buried and divorced from their origins. It should not be hard to find out what the oldest universities are. If I add African or Arab to my search and get a different answer, something is wrong. Why should anyone have to use math to find out what came first? Do we privilege fear and suppression over learning?
Try these search experiments with other topics and search engines. Compare your findings. Other topics I habitually look up are optics, surgery, philosophy and navigation. The European male inventor has usually popped up in a Google search over the true originators who often came from North Africa or Southwest Asia, Iran, India, China or Southern Spain. Sometimes they were women. A few months ago the fathers of optics were European. Last week they were part of the Arab/Islamic network predating the European “founders” by hundreds of years. Artificial intelligence is doing the DEI work that the Trump administration is trying to extinguish.
The best rulers of the world, many from Africa, ruled ethnically and religiously diverse lands. Their recipe for innovation was diversity and inclusion. They pulled from Byzantium, Africa, Indo-China and all tribal cultures to create what adds up to our modern world.
African American History month should encourage us to celebrate the vast threads of lineage. Let’s be expansive about human accomplishments. Be skeptical and search for what ties the flow of humankind and its expansive accomplishments.
Bittar is an artist and community activist who lives in North Park.
San Diego, CA
San Diego health officials monitor hantavirus situation as cruise ship passengers return to U.S.
SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — American passengers from a cruise ship hit with a hantavirus outbreak are back in the United States.
San Diego County health officials say they are monitoring the situation and there is no need for panic.
“The risk to Californians is really low and especially here in San Diego. Since the year 2000, we’ve only had 4 cases of hantavirus and the majority of those were in travel related cases so not even acquired here locally,” Ankita Kadakia, deputy public health officer for the County of San Diego, said.
According to the CDC, hantavirus is spread through contact with infected rodents.
“The virus can be in their saliva, feces or droppings,” Kadakia said.
San Diego County does see cases of rodents infected with hantavirus, but the strain seen locally is not the same strain connected to the cruise ship outbreak.
“The vast majority of strains of hantavirus are mouse or animal to human transmission. Not human to human transmission. So the Andes strain, which is found in Argentina, there is evidence that there is human to human transmission,” Dr. Ahmed Salem, a pulmonologist at Sharp Memorial Hospital, said.
Salem treated hantavirus during the 2012 Yosemite National Park outbreak.
“One of the ways you die from hantavirus is you get a collapse of your cardiac system and your pulmonary system and you have to go on something called ECMO. It’s one of the most aggressive forms of life support that you can do. So I do remember that case, and unfortunately, that person passed away,” Salem said.
There is currently no cure or vaccine for hantavirus. Health officials stress that for those who were not on the cruise ship, the risk of contracting the virus remains low.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
Here’s some instant reaction from the Padres’ wild 3-2 victory
It seemed like the same tired story.
Instead, it was the same thriller.
The Padres pushed their offensive lethargy as long as possible without paying for it Sunday, tying the game with two outs in the ninth inning on Nick Castellanos’ two-run homer and then celebrating after Manny Machado’s sacrifice fly in the 10th inning gave them a 3-2 victory over the Cardinals.
“Getting it done,” Machado said.
That’s it. That is all they are doing.
And at what is essentially the quarter mark of the season, the Padres are 24-16 and tied with the Dodgers atop the National League West.
The shocking component of their having the major leagues’ fifth-best record is that the Padres rank in the bottom three among MLB’s 30 teams in batting average and OPS.
They split with the Cardinals despite having 14 hits, their fewest in a four-game series in franchise history. Their 61 hits over their past 10 games are the fewest in a stretch that long since 2019, and they are 5-5 in those games.
“It sucks; we need to hit; Machado said. “I mean, you know, look, it’s obvious. We’re not hitting. It’s obvious, but we’re getting things done, man.”
Sunday was the Padres’ 12th victory this season in which the decisive run was scored in the seventh inning or later. That is exactly half their victories.
It was their fourth walk-off victory, their second in extra innings. It was the seventh time that a run scored in their final offensive half-inning decided a victory.
So it is no small thing to proffer that Sunday was possibly their most dramatic triumph. Because it was possibly their most unlikely one.
Not only were they a strike away from defeat, but they began the ninth inning having gotten two hits all day.
The Cardinals took a 2-0 lead in the fourth inning on their first two hits off Walker Buehler — a single by Alec Burleson and a home run by Jordan Walker with two outs. Buehler pitched six innings, allowing just one more hit before Ron Marinaccio worked two scoreless innings.
But the Padres were unable to make anything of their seven at-bats with runners in scoring position over the first eight innings. They had walked five times but had just Jackson Merrill’s third-inning single and Xander Bogaerts’ fourth-inning double to that point.
“Really good teams find ways to win games when they’re not doing their best,” Gavin Sheets said. “… We’re not clicking on all cylinders by any means. And I don’t think any of us would say that he’s on a roll right now, but we’re getting hits in a timely fashion and it’s someone different every night.”
Almost.
The Padres have game-winning RBIs from 10 different players. They have go-ahead RBIs from 13 of the 14 position players who have been on their roster this season. Sunday was Castellanos’s third game-tying RBI.
His home run, on the ninth pitch of his at-bat against Cardinals closer Riley O’Brien, was something of a clinic by a veteran hitter who is in his first season as a role player.
Castellenos, who entered the game as a pinch-hitter in the seventh inning and remained in right field, came to the plate with Bogaerts at first base with two outs.
Bogaerts’ single leading off the inning had been followed by two strikeouts, and Castellanos fell behind 0-2 before working the count full and then sending a 99 mph sinker on the inner edge of the plate almost to the ribbon scoreboard fronting the second level of seats beyond left field.
“The first pitch started, and I was probably looking to do what I did,” he said. “And then I ended up getting 0-2 and chasing. After that, just took a deep breath and tried to shorten up as much as possible and just compete. Just find a way on base. And then found myself in a full account and was able to get the job done.”
It was the first home run allowed by O’Brien this season.
With closer Mason Miller not available after throwing 29 pitches over 1⅓ innings on Saturday, Jeremiah Estrada got the first two outs of the 10th. With runners on first and second, Adrian Morejón entered the game and got an inning-ending pop out on his first pitch.
Gordon Graceffo was on the mound for the Cardinals, and Ramón Laureano was the Padres’ automatic runner in the 10th. The Cardinals intentionally walked Merrill at the start before Fernando Tatis Jr. whittled a 1-2 count into a walk to load the bases.
The game was over one pitch later, when Machado sent a fastball to right-center field and Laureano slid across the plate well in front of right fielder Jordan Walker’s throw.
It was a somewhat subdued but still enthusiastic celebration along the first-base line, as teammates bounced around Machado.
“It’s hard to win a game like that,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said. “Their pitchers pitched great, and they’re bringing in one of the best closers in the game. And we just stuck with it. It just speaks to how those guys believe in themselves and how they believe in what we’ve got going on as a team.”
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