8 Manfaat kesehatan di balik segarnya air tebu

Saco-Indonesia.com - Tebu merupakan tanaman yang paling banyak ditemui di Indonesia. Oleh karena itu orang Indonesia menemukan banyak cara kreatif dalam mengolah tebu sehingga dapat dijadikan sebagai olahan minuman yang menyegarkan, salah satunya adalah air tebu.

Ternyata di balik olahan air tebu yang menyegarkan tersimpan beberapa manfaat untuk kesehatan. Inilah manfaat air tebu seperti dilansir dari boldsky.com.

Menyembuhkan penyakit kuning
Air tebu merupakan obat alami untuk menyembuhkan penyakit kuning. Penyakit kuning adalah pigmentasi kuning pada kulit dan membran yang disebabkan oleh adanya billirubin di dalam darah. Penyakit ini terjadi karena menurunnya fungsi hati. Namun air tebu mampu mengembalikan kekuatan fungsi hati sehingga air tebu mampu menyembuhkan penyakit kuning.

Menyembuhkan infeksi
beberapa infeksi seperti infeksi saluran kemih, penyakit menular seksual, hingga peradangan pada perut mampu disembuhkan dengan segelas air tebu.

Mengobati batu ginjal
Batu ginjal terjadi karena dehidrasi di dalam tubuh. Oleh karena itu untuk menghidrasi tubuh kembali, Anda dapat mencoba mengonsumsi air tebu secara rutin. Air tebu juga mempunyai kandungan alami yang dapat memecah batu ginjal.

Baik untuk penderita diabetes
Air tebu baik dikonsumsi oleh penderita diabetes sebab air tebu mengandung pemanis alami. Sehingga tidak membahayakan atau memicu penyakit diabetes.

Kaya akan nutrisi
Air tebu kaya akan vitamin dan mineral seperti fosfor, zat besi, kalium, kalsium, dan magnesium. Selain itu penelitian menunjukkan bahwa air tebu mampu membantu memulihkan kekurangan vitamin di dalam tubuh akibat penyakit demam yang tinggi.

Menyembuhkan flu dan pilek
Jika Anda berpikir bahwa air tebu akan memperparah sakit tenggorokan Anda, maka Anda salah. Sebab air tebu justru mampu membantu menyembuhkan sakit tenggorokan, pilek, dan flu.

Mencegah kanker
Karena kandungan alkali di dalamnya, air tebu baik untuk mencegah kanker terutama kanker usus besar, kanker paru-paru, dan kanker payudara.

Menghidrasi tubuh
Dehidrasi masih menjadi penyakit yang jamak ditemui terutama ketika musim panas. Oleh karena itu untuk mencegahnya, Anda dapat mengonsumsi air tebu untuk menurunkan panas tubuh dan menghidrasi tubuh.

Sedang mencari alternatif minuman sehat? Tidak ada salahnya apabila Anda mengonsumsi air tebu.

Sumber : Merdeka.com

Editor : Maulana Lee

MENUNAIKAN HAJI, ANTARA SUNNAH ATAU TRADISI LINGKUNGAN

Banyak tradisi berkembang di masyarakat yang mengiringi orang yang hendak menunaikan ibadah haji. Sebagai ibadah yang membutuhkan pengorbanan besar, seyogyanya kita jangan sampai melakukan amalan yang bisa merusak ibadah haji ini. Yang pasti, ibadah haji harus dilakukan di atas niat yang tulus yaitu untuk mengharap balasan dari Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala semata dan dijalankan di atas tuntunan Rasulullah Shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam.

Rambu-rambu Penting dalam Beribadah
Manusia adalah satu-satunya makhluk Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala yang menyatakan diri siap memikul “amanat berat” yang tidak dimampui oleh makhluk-makhluk besar seperti langit, bumi, dan gunung-gunung. Padahal makhluk yang bernama manusia ini berjati diri zhalum (amat dzalim) dan jahul (amat bodoh). Amanat itu adalah menjalankan segala apa yang Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala perintahkan dan menjauhi segala apa yang Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala haramkan (beribadah kepada-Nya). Sebagaimana dalam firman-Nya:

إِِنَّا عَرَضْنَا اْلأََمَانَةَ عَلَى السَّمَاوَاتِ وَاْلأَرْضِ وَالْجِبَالِ فَأَبَيْنَ أَنْ يَحْمِلْنَهَا وَأَشْفَقْنَ مِنْهَا وَحَمَلَهَا اْلإِنْسَانُ إِنَّهُ كَانَ ظَلُوْمًا جَهُوْلاً

“Sesungguhnya Kami telah tawarkan amanat kepada langit, bumi, dan gunung-gunung, maka semuanya enggan untuk memikul amanat itu karena khawatir akan mengkhianatinya, dan dipikullah amanat itu oleh manusia. Sesungguhnya manusia itu amat dzalim dan amat bodoh.” (Al-Ahzab: 72)

Asy-Syaikh Abdurrahman bin Nashir As-Sa’di rahimahullah berkata:
“Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala mengangkat permasalahan amanat yang Dia amanatkan kepada para mukallafiin. Yaitu amanat menjalankan segala yang diperintahkan dan menjauhi segala yang diharamkan, baik dalam keadaan tampak maupun tidak. Dia tawarkan amanat itu kepada makhluk-makhluk besar; langit, bumi dan gunung-gunung sebagai tawaran pilihan bukan keharusan, ‘Bila engkau menjalankan dan melaksanakannya niscaya bagimu pahala, dan bila tidak, niscaya kamu akan dihukum’. Maka makhluk-makhluk itu pun enggan untuk memikulnya karena khawatir akan mengkhianatinya, bukan karena menentang Rabb mereka dan bukan pula karena tidak butuh akan pahala-Nya. Kemudian Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala menawarkannya kepada manusia, maka ia pun siap menerima amanat itu dan memikulnya dengan segala kedzaliman dan kebodohan yang melekat pada dirinya. Maka amanat berat itu pun akhirnya berada di pundaknya.” (Taisirul Karimir Rahman, hal. 620)

Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala Yang Maha Pengasih lagi Maha Penyayang, Yang Maha Kuasa lagi Maha Bijaksana, tidaklah membiarkan manusia mengarungi kehidupannya dengan memikul amanat berat tanpa bimbingan Ilahi. Maka Dia pun mengutus para Rasul sebagai pembimbing mereka dan menurunkan Kitab Suci agar berpegang teguh dengannya serta mengambil petunjuk darinya. Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala berfirman:

لَقَدْ أَرْسَلْنَا رُسُلَنَا بِالْبَيِّنَاتِ وَأَنْزَلْنَا مَعَهُمُ اْلكِتَابَ وَالْمِيْزَانَ لِيَقُوْمَ النَّاسُ بِالْقِسْطِ

“Sungguh Kami telah mengutus Rasul-rasul Kami dengan membawa bukti-bukti yang nyata, dan Kami turunkan bersama mereka Kitab Suci dan neraca (keadilan) supaya manusia dapat melaksanakan keadilan.” (Al-Hadid: 25)

Maka dari itu, jalan untuk beribadah kepada Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala amatlah jelas dan terang, termasuk ibadah haji. Karena semuanya telah tercakup dalam Al-Qur`an dan Sunnah Nabi shallallah ‘alaihi wa sallam. Adapun rambu-rambu penting dalam beribadah yang dikandung Al-Qur`an dan Sunnah Nabi shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam tersebut, semuanya bermuara pada dua perkara penting:

1. Mengikhlaskan ibadah hanya untuk Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala semata.
2. Mengikuti tuntunan dan jejak Rasulullah shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam.

Dua perkara tersebut merupakan pangkal kesuksesan dalam kehidupan di dunia dan juga di akhirat.
Al-Imam Ibnul Qayyim rahimahullahu berkata:
“Barangsiapa yang memerhatikan kondisi alam ini, niscaya ia akan mengetahui bahwasanya sebab dari semua kebaikan yang ada di muka bumi ini adalah beribadah hanya kepada Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala semata (tauhidullah) dan taat kepada Rasulullah shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam. Sedangkan sebab dari kerusakan, fitnah, bala`, paceklik, dan kekalahan dari musuh adalah menyelisihi Rasulullah shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam dan menyeru kepada selain jalan Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala dan Rasul-Nya.” (Bada`i’ul Fawa`id, 3/17)

Bahkan keduanya merupakan barometer, apakah sebuah ibadah yang dilakukan seseorang diterima di sisi Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala ataukah ditolak.

Asy-Syaikh Muhammad bin Shalih Al-‘Utsaimin berkata:
“Sebuah ibadah tidak bisa untuk bertaqarrub kepada Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala, bahkan tidak diterima oleh-Nya kecuali dengan dua syarat:

1. Ikhlas karena Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala, dengan mempersembahkan ibadah tersebut semata-mata mengharap wajah Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala dan kebahagian di negeri akhirat, tanpa ada niatan mengharap pujian dan sanjungan manusia.
2. Mengikuti (tuntunan) Nabi shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam dalam beribadah, baik dalam hal ucapan atau pun perbuatan.

Mengikuti (tuntunan) Nabi shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam tidaklah mungkin terealisasi dengan baik kecuali dengan mengetahui Sunnah (ajaran) Nabi shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam. Oleh karena itu, siapapun yang berkeinginan untuk mengikuti Nabi shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam maka dia harus mempelajari Sunnah (ajaran) Nabi shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam tersebut dari para ulama yang mumpuni. Bisa dengan berkoresponden ataupun dengan berkomunikasi secara langsung. Dan merupakan kewajiban bagi para ulama, sang pewaris Nabi shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, untuk menerapkan (terlebih dahulu, pen.) Sunnah beliau shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam dalam ibadah, akhlak, dan muamalah mereka. Kemudian berupaya untuk menyampaikan Sunnah Nabi shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam tersebut kepada umat agar kehidupan mereka terwarnai dengan warisan beliau shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam baik dalam bentuk ilmu, amal perbuatan, dan dakwah. Sehingga mereka termasuk orang-orang sukses yang beriman kepada Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala, beramal shalih, dan saling berwasiat dengan kebenaran dan kesabaran.” (Al-Manhaj Limuridil ‘Umrah wal Hajj)

Asy-Syaikh Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab rahimahullahu berkata:
“Jika kebahagiaan umat terdahulu dan yang akan datang dikarenakan mengikuti jejak para Rasul, maka dapatlah diketahui bahwa orang yang paling berbahagia adalah yang paling berilmu tentang ajaran para Rasul dan paling mengikutinya. Maka dari itu, orang yang paling mengerti tentang sabda para Rasul dan amalan-amalannya serta benar-benar mengikutinya, mereka itulah sesungguhnya orang yang paling berbahagia di setiap masa dan tempat. Dan merekalah golongan yang selamat dalam setiap agama (yang dibawa para Rasul tersebut, pen.). Dan dari umat ini adalah Ahlus Sunnah wal Hadits.” (Ad-Durar As-Saniyyah, juz 2, hal. 21)

Al-Imam Malik rahimahullahu berkata:
“Barangsiapa mengada-adakan perkara baru dalam agama (bid’ah) yang dia pandang itu adalah baik, sungguh ia telah menuduh bahwa Nabi Muhammad shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam telah berkhianat terhadap risalah (yang beliau emban). Karena Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala berfirman (artinya): “Pada hari ini telah Kusempurnakan agama bagi kalian, dan Aku telah lengkapkan nikmat-Ku atas kalian dan Aku ridha Islam sebagai agama kalian.” Atas dasar ini, segala perkara yang pada waktu itu (yakni di masa Nabi/para shahabat) bukan bagian dari agama, maka pada hari ini pula perkara itu bukan termasuk agama.” (Al-I’tisham, 1/49)

Ibadah Haji dan Keutamaannya
Para pembaca yang mulia, di antara sekian bentuk ketaatan (ibadah) yang paling utama dan sarana bertaqarrub kepada Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala yang termulia adalah ibadah haji. Bahkan ia termasuk ibadah yang Allah  wajibkan, dan termasuk salah satu dari rukun Islam. Rasulullah shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam bersabda:

بُنِيَ اْلإِسْلاَمُ عَلَى خَمْسٍ: شَهَادَةِ أَنْ لاّ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ اللهُ وَأَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا رَسُوْلُ اللهِ، وَإِقَامِ الصَّلاَةِ، وَإِيْتَاءِ الزَّكَاةِ، وَصِيَامِ رَمَضَانَ، وَحَجِّ الْبَيْتِ

“Agama Islam dibangun di atas lima perkara; bersyahadat bahwasanya tidak ada yang berhak diibadahi kecuali Allah dan Nabi Muhammad itu utusan Allah, mendirikan shalat, menunaikan zakat, shaum di bulan Ramadhan, dan berhaji ke Baitullah.” (HR. Al-Bukhari no. 8 dan Muslim no. 16, dari shahabat Abdullah bin Umar radhiyallahu ‘anhuma)

Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala menyeru para hamba-Nya untuk berhaji melalui lisan Nabiyullah Ibrahim ‘alaihissalam, agar para hamba dapat menyaksikan segala yang bermanfaat bagi kebaikan hidup dunia dan akhirat mereka. Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala berfirman:

وَأَذِّنْ فِي النَّاسِ بِالْحَجِّ يَأْتُوْكَ رِجَالاً وَعَلَىكُلِّ ضَامِرٍ يَأْتِيْنَ مِنْ كُلِّ فَجٍّ عَمِيْقٍ لِِيَشْهَدُوا مَنَافِعَ لَهُمْ

“Dan umumkanlah kepada manusia untuk berhaji, niscaya mereka akan mendatangimu dengan berjalan kaki atau mengendarai unta kurus dari segala penjuru yang jauh untuk menyaksikan segala yang bermanfaat bagi mereka.” (Al-Hajj: 27-28)

Sebagaimana pula Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala telah mengingatkan orang-orang yang mampu berhaji agar mereka mempersembahkan ibadah hajinya hanya untuk-Nya semata. Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala berfirman:

وَلِلَّهِ عَلَى النَّاسِ حِجُّ البَيْتِ مَنِ اسْتَطَاعَ إِلَيْهِ سَبِيْلاً وَمَنْ كَفَرَ فَإِنَّ اللهَ غَنِيٌّ عَنِ الْعَالَمِيْنَ

“Dan hanya karena Allahlah haji ke Baitullah itu diwajibkan bagi manusia yang mampu mengadakan perjalanan ke sana. Barangsiapa yang kafir maka sesungguhnya Allah tidak butuh terhadap seluruh alam semesta.” (Ali ‘Imran: 97)

Junjungan kita Nabi besar Muhammad shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam juga mendorong umatnya untuk menunaikan ibadah yang mulia ini. Sebagaimana sabda beliau shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam:

يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ، إِنَّ اللهَ كَتَبَ عَلَيْكُمُ الْحَجَّ. فَقَامَ اْلأَقْرَعُ بْنُ حَابِسٍ فَقَالَ: أَفِي كُلِّ عَامٍ يَا رَسُولَ اللهِ؟ قَالَ: لَوْ قُلْتُهَا لَوَجَبَتْ، وَلَوْ وُجِبَتْ لَمْ تَعْمَلُوا بِهَا وَلَمْ تَسْتَطِيْعُوا أَنْ تَعْمَلُوا بِهَا، الْحَجُّ مَرَّةً، فَمَنْ زَادَ فَتَطَوَّعَ

“Wahai sekalian manusia, sesungguhnya Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala telah mewajibkan kepada kalian ibadah haji!” Maka berdirilah Al-Aqra’ bin Habis seraya mengatakan: “Apakah haji itu wajib ditunaikan setiap tahun, ya Rasulullah?” Maka beliau shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam pun menjawab: “Kalau aku katakan; ya, niscaya akan menjadi kewajiban setiap tahun. Dan bila diwajibkan setiap tahun, niscaya kalian tidak akan menunaikannya, bahkan tidak akan mampu untuk menunaikannya. Kewajiban haji itu hanya sekali (seumur hidup). Barangsiapa menunaikannya lebih dari sekali, maka dia telah bertathawwu’ (melakukan perbuatan sunnah).” (HR. Abu Dawud, An-Nasa`i, Ad-Darimi, Ad-Daraquthni, Al-Hakim dan Ahmad, dari shahabat Abdullah bin Abbas radhiyallahu ‘anhuma. Lihat Irwa`ul Ghalil, karya Asy-Syaikh Al-Albani juz 4 hal. 149-150)

Bahkan beliau shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam menjelaskan akan pahalanya yang besar, ganjarannya yang banyak dan sebagai penebus bagi segala dosa. Sebagaimana sabda beliau shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam:

مَنْ حَجَّ لِلَّهِ فَلَمْ يَرْفُثْ وَلَمْ يَفْسُقْ رَجَعَ كَيَوْمٍ وَلَدَتْهُ أُمُّهُ

“Barangsiapa berhaji karena Allah lalu tidak berbuat keji dan kefasikan (dalam hajinya tersebut), niscaya dia pulang dari ibadah tersebut seperti di hari ketika dilahirkan oleh ibunya (bersih dari dosa).” (HR Al-Bukhari dalam Shahih-nya no. 1521 dan Muslim no. 1350, dari shahabat Abu Hurairah radhiyallahu ‘anhu)

الْعُمْرَةُ إِلَى الْعُمْرَةِ كَفَّارَةٌ لِمَا بَيْنَهُمَا، وَالْحَجُّ الْمَبْرُورُ لَيْسَ لَهُ جَزَاءٌ إِلاَّ الْجَنَّةَ

“Antara satu umrah dengan umrah berikutnya merupakan penebus dosa-dosa yang ada di antara keduanya, dan haji mabrur itu tidak ada balasan baginya kecuali Al-Jannah.” (HR Muslim no. 1349, dari shahabat Abu Hurairah radhiyallahu ‘anhu)

Kewajiban Menunaikan Ibadah Haji dengan penuh Keikhlasan

Syaikhul Islam Ibnu Taimiyyah berkata:

“Setiap jamaah haji berkewajiban untuk memurnikan niat hajinya karena Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala dan untuk bertaqarrub kepada-Nya semata. Sebagaimana pula harus berhati-hati dari tujuan duniawi, berbangga diri, mengejar gelar/sebutan (pak haji/bu haji, pen.), ingin dilihat orang atau mencari pamor. Karena semua itu dapat membatalkan amalan (haji anda, pen.) dan menjadikannya tidak diterima di sisi Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala.” (Lihat Taudhihul Ahkam, juz 4 hal. 3-4)

Hal senada disampaikan Asy-Syaikh Abdul Aziz bin Baz rahimahullah. Beliau berkata:
“Merupakan suatu kewajiban atas seorang yang berhaji untuk meniatkan haji dan umrahnya karena Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala dan mengharapkan kebahagiaan di negeri akhirat serta meniatkannya untuk bertaqarrub kepada Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala dengan segala perkataan dan perbuatan yang diharapkan dapat mendatangkan ridha-Nya di tempat-tempat yang mulia tersebut. Dan hendaknya selalu waspada dari tujuan duniawi, riya` (ingin dilihat orang), mencari pamor, dan untuk gagah-gagahan semata. Karena ini merupakan sejelek-jelek niatan dan termasuk sebab tertolaknya suatu amalan.” (At-Tahqiq wal Idhah Lil-Katsir Min Masa`ilil Hajji wal ‘Umrah, hal.12)

Kewajiban Menunaikan Ibadah Haji sesuai Sunnah Nabi shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam
Perjalanan suci menuju Baitullah membutuhkan bekal yang cukup. Di samping bekal harta, ilmu pun merupakan bekal yang mutlak dibutuhkan. Dengan ilmu lah, seseorang menjadi terbimbing dalam melakukan ibadah hajinya dan sesuai dengan Sunnah (tuntunan) Nabi shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam. Lebih dari itu, akan terhindar dari berbagai macam bid’ah dan kesalahan, sehingga hajinya pun sebagai haji mabrur yang tiada balasan baginya kecuali Al-Jannah.

Dalam momentum hajjatul wada’ (haji terakhir), Nabi shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam pernah menyampaikan pesan khusus kepada umatnya, agar mereka menunaikan ibadah haji sesuai dengan tuntunan manasik beliau shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam. Beliau shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam bersabda:

خُذُوا عَنِّي مَنَاسِكَكُمْ

“Ambillah dariku tuntunan manasik haji kalian.” (HR. Muslim no. 1297)

Para shahabat pun sangat memerhatikan pesan beliau ini. Tak heran, jika banyak didapati berbagai riwayat tentang manasik haji yang mereka jalani bersama Nabi shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam. Demikian pula para ulama, tidak sedikit dari mereka yang menyusun kitab-kitab tentang manasik haji baik yang detail atau pun yang sederhana. Semua itu menggambarkan kepada kita bahwasanya para pendahulu umat ini telah mempersembahkan untuk kita ilmu tentang manasik haji, agar kita dapat berhaji sesuai dengan Sunnah Nabi shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam.

Maka dari itu, di antara nasehat yang selalu disampaikan para ulama kita kepada calon jamaah haji adalah; hendaknya mereka serius untuk mempelajari dan mendalami ilmu (tuntunan) manasik haji sebelum menunaikannya, dengan satu harapan agar ibadah haji yang ditunaikannya benar-benar sempurna dan diterima di sisi Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala.

Asy-Syaikh Muhammad Nashiruddin Al-Albani berkata:
“Kami nasehatkan kepada calon jamaah haji, agar belajar terlebih dahulu tentang manasik haji yang dituntunkan di dalam Al-Qur`an dan Sunnah Nabi shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam sebelum menunaikan ibadah hajinya. Sehingga amalan haji yang ditunaikannya itu benar-benar sempurna dan diterima di sisi Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala.” (Hajjatun Nabi shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, hal. 10)

Asy-Syaikh Abdul Aziz bin Baz berkata:
“Sudah seharusnya bagi seseorang yang hendak berhaji untuk mempelajari dan mendalami segala yang disyariatkan tentang haji dan umrahnya. Dan hendaknya dia juga menanyakan hal-hal yang belum dipahaminya (kepada seorang yang berilmu, pen.) agar ibadah haji yang ditunaikannya benar-benar di atas bashirah (ilmu).” (At-Tahqiq wal Idhah, hal. 13)

Fenomena Taqlid dan Mengikuti Tradisi dalam Berhaji
Para pembaca yang mulia, bila kita memerhatikan sekian kesalahan yang terjadi pada kebanyakan jamaah haji, maka penyebabnya bermuara pada dua faktor:
1. Faktor dari dalam
2. Faktor dari luar

Faktor dari dalam adalah penyebab yang berasal dari diri jamaah haji itu sendiri. Hal ini terjadi manakala seorang jamaah haji mengabaikan bekal ilmu yang hakikatnya merupakan bekal utama yang harus dia persiapkan. Tentunya, ketika bekal ilmu tidak dimiliki maka manasik hajinya pun jauh dari manasik haji Rasulullah shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam. Dia akan lebih cenderung mengikuti manasik haji yang dilakukan oleh mayoritas orang (tradisi) di sekitarnya. Padahal apa yang dilakukan oleh mayoritas orang itu belum tentu sesuai dengan tuntunan manasik Rasulullah shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam. Permasalahan pun semakin runyam manakala di antara jamaah haji itu ada yang berkeyakinan bahwasanya mengikuti manasik haji/ tradisi yang biasa dilakukan mayoritas orang itu merupakan jaminan kebenaran.

Asy-Syaikh Shalih bin Fauzan Al-Fauzan berkata:
“Di antara masalah (yang terjadi di masa, pen.) jahiliyyah adalah bahwasanya mereka mengukur suatu kebenaran dengan jumlah mayoritas, dan menilai suatu kesalahan dengan jumlah minoritas. Sehingga sesuatu yang diikuti oleh kebanyakan orang berarti benar, sedangkan yang diikuti oleh segelintir orang berarti salah. Inilah patokan yang ada pada diri mereka dalam menilai yang benar dan yang salah. Padahal patokan ini keliru, karena Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala berfirman:

وَإِنْ تُطِعْ أَكْثَرَ مَنْ فِي اْلأَرْضِ يُضِلُّوْكَ عَنْ سَبِيْلِ اللهِ إِنْ يَتَّبِعُوْنَ إِلاَّ الظَّنَّ وَإِنْ هُم إِلاَّ يَخْرُصُوْنَ

“Dan jika kamu menuruti mayoritas orang-orang yang ada di muka bumi ini, niscaya mereka akan menyesatkanmu dari jalan Allah. Mereka tidak lain hanyalah mengikuti persangkaan belaka, dan mereka tidak lain hanyalah berdusta (terhadap Allah).” (Al-An’am: 116)

Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala juga berfirman:

وَلكِنَّ أَكْثَرَ النَّاسِ لاَ يَعْلَمُوْنَ

“Tetapi mayoritas manusia tidak mengetahui.” (Al-A’raf: 187)

وَمَا وَجَدْنَا لأَكْثَرِهِمْ مِنْ عَهْدٍ وَإِنْ وَجَدْنَا أَكْثَرَهُمْ لَفَاسِقُوْنَ

“Dan Kami tidak mendapati mayoritas mereka memenuhi janji. Sesungguhnya Kami mendapati mayoritas mereka orang-orang yang fasik.” (Al-A’raf: 102)

Dan lain sebagainya.” (Syarh Masa`il Al-Jahiliyyah, hal. 60)

Asy-Syaikh Sulaiman bin Abdullah Alusy-Syaikh berkata
: “Dalam hadits ini1 terdapat bantahan terhadap orang yang berdalih dengan hukum mayoritas, dan beranggapan bahwa kebenaran itu selalu bersama mereka. Tidaklah demikian adanya. Bahkan yang semestinya adalah mengikuti Al-Qur`an dan As-Sunnah bersama siapa saja dan di mana saja.” (Taisir Al-‘Azizil Hamid, hal.106).

Asy-Syaikh Abdurrahman bin Hasan Alusy-Syaikh berkata:
“Hendaknya seorang muslim berhati-hati agar tidak tertipu dengan jumlah mayoritas, karena telah banyak orang-orang yang tertipu (dengannya). Termasuk orang-orang yang mengaku berilmu sekalipun. Mereka berkeyakinan di dalam beragama sebagaimana yang diyakini oleh orang-orang bodoh lagi sesat (mengikuti mayoritas manusia, pen.) dan tidak mau melihat kepada apa yang dikatakan oleh Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala dan Rasul-Nya.” (Qurratu ‘Uyunil Muwahhidin, dinukil dari ta’liq kitab Fathul Majid, hal. 83, no. 1)

Para pembaca, dengan demikian “budaya” ngikut tradisi atau ngikut mayoritas orang dalam beribadah kepada Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala (termasuk dalam menunaikan ibadah haji), tidak bisa dibenarkan dalam syariat Islam. Oleh karena itu, sudah saatnya bagi umat Islam untuk berupaya meniti jejak Rasulullah shallallhu ‘alaihi wa sallam dalam segala amal ibadahnya, agar apa yang dipersembahkan kepada Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala tersebut tidak sia-sia bahkan tercatat sebagai amalan shalih.

Adapun faktor penyebab dari luar adalah adanya orang-orang yang mudah berfatwa tentang urusan agama (termasuk masalah haji) tanpa ilmu.

Asy-Syaikh Muhammad bin Shalih Al-‘Utsaimin rahimahullah berkata:
“Sebagian kaum muslimin –semoga Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala memberikan hidayah dan taufiq-Nya kepada mereka– melakukan banyak perkara ibadah tanpa berasaskan Kitabullah dan Sunnah Rasulullah shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam. Terlebih dalam masalah haji, yang seringkali penyebabnya adalah adanya orang-orang yang mudah berfatwa tanpa ilmu, serta saling berlomba untuk mengeluarkan fatwa demi meraih pujian dan popularitas. Sehingga terjadilah kesesatan dan penyesatan (terhadap umat).” –Hingga perkataan beliau–: “Kebanyakan kesalahan yang terjadi pada jamaah haji berpangkal dari sini (yakni; fatwa tanpa ilmu) dan saling meniru di antara mereka (orang-orang awam) tanpa ada kejelasan dalilnya.” (Akh-tha`un Yartakibuha Ba’dhul Hujjaj)

Maka dari itu, kami serukan kepada segenap jamaah haji untuk benar-benar selektif dalam memilih guru pembimbing haji. Carilah guru pembimbing yang berilmu dan berpegang teguh dengan Kitabullah dan Sunnah Rasulullah shallallhu ‘alaihi wa sallam, agar haji yang anda lakukan tergolong haji mabrur.

Sebagaimana pula kami serukan kepada segenap jamaah haji agar menjauhi sikap taqlid buta dalam beribadah, termasuk ketika berhaji. Baik taqlid buta terhadap tradisi, ormas, partai, atau pun tokoh/panutan/ustadz/kyai, dsb. Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala mencela sikap taqlid buta dalam beberapa ayat-Nya dan menjelaskan kepada kita bahwasanya sikap taqlid buta itu merupakan kebiasaan kaum musyrikin2 ketika dakwah para nabi sampai kepada mereka. Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala berfirman:

أَمْ آتَيْنَاهُمْ كِتَابًا مِنْ قَبْلِهِ فَهُمْ بِهِ مُسْتَمْسِكُوْنَ. بَلْ قَالُوا إِنَّا وَجَدْنَا آبَاءَنَا عَلَى أُمَّةٍ وَإِنَّا عَلَى آثَارِهِمْ مُهْتَدُونَ

“Apakah seandainya telah kami datangkan kepada mereka sebuah kitab (hujjah) sebelum munculnya kesyirikan yang mereka lakukan, kemudian mereka mau berpegang dengannya? Ternyata justru mereka berkata: “Sesungguhnya kami telah mendapati nenek moyang kami di atas sebuah prinsip (aqidah yang mereka yakini), maka kami adalah orang-orang yang mendapat petunjuk dengan mengikuti jejak pendahulu kami.” (Az-Zukhruf: 21-22)

Para imam yang empat sendiri, tidak menganjurkan murid-muridnya dan segenap kaum muslimin untuk taqlid buta kepada mereka. Bahkan mereka berpesan agar umat ini kembali kepada Kitabullah dan Sunnah Rasul-Nya yang shahih. Berikut ini kami bawakan beberapa nukilan dari perkataan mereka yang terdapat dalam kitab Shifat Shalat Nabi shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam karya Asy-Syaikh Al-Albani (hal. 46-53):

    Al-Imam Abu Hanifah rahimahullah mengatakan:

“Tidak halal bagi siapa pun mengambil pendapat kami tanpa mengetahui dari mana dasar hujjah yang kami ambil.” Dalam riwayat lainnya, beliau mengatakan: “Haram bagi siapa pun yang tidak mengetahui dalil yang saya pakai, untuk berfatwa dengan pendapat saya. Karena sesungguhnya kami adalah manusia, pendapat yang sekarang kami ucapkan, mungkin besok kami rujuk darinya (kami tinggalkan pendapat tersebut).”

    Al-Imam Malik rahimahullah mengatakan:

“Saya hanyalah manusia biasa yang mungkin salah dan mungkin benar. Maka telitilah pendapatku, apabila sesuai dengan Al-Qur`an dan As-Sunnah maka ambillah. Dan apabila tidak sesuai dengan keduanya maka tinggalkanlah.”

    Al-Imam Asy-Syafi’i rahimahullah mengatakan:

“Semua permasalahan yang sudah disebutkan dalam hadits Nabi shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam yang shahih dan berbeda dengan pendapat saya, maka saya rujuk dari pendapat tersebut baik ketika saya masih hidup atau pun meninggal dunia.”

    Al-Imam Ahmad rahimahullah mengatakan:

“Janganlah kalian taqlid kepadaku dan jangan pula taqlid kepada Malik, Asy-Syafi’i, Al-Auza’i, atau (Sufyan) Ats-Tsauri. Akan tetapi ambillah (dalil) dari mana mereka mengambil.”

Penutup

Para pembaca yang mulia, setelah kita lalui beberapa bahasan di atas maka dapatlah disimpulkan:

    Sebuah ibadah akan diterima di sisi Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala manakala terpenuhi dua syarat; ikhlas hanya karena Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala semata, dan sesuai dengan tuntunan Rasulullah shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam.
    Ibadah haji merupakan jenis ketaatan yang utama dan salah satu bentuk taqarrub yang termulia. Karena itu haruslah dipersembahkan untuk Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala semata, tanpa diiringi niatan duniawi, mencari nama, gelar, pamor, dan lain sebagainya.
    Perjalanan ke tanah suci sangat membutuhkan bekal ilmu. Karena dengan ilmulah, seseorang akan terbimbing dalam melakukan ibadah hajinya sesuai dengan tuntunan Rasulullah shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam. Lebih dari itu, akan terhindar dari berbagai macam bid’ah dan kesalahan sehingga hajinya pun sebagai haji mabrur yang tiada balasan baginya kecuali Al-Jannah.
    Seseorang yang akan menunaikan ibadah haji hendaknya mencari guru pembimbing yang berilmu lagi berpegang-teguh dengan Kitabullah dan Sunnah Rasulullah shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, agar haji yang ditunaikannya benar-benar di atas ilmu dan bashirah.
    Sikap ikut-ikutan dalam beribadah (termasuk ketika berhaji) merupakan perbuatan tercela. Demikian pula sikap taqlid buta terhadap tradisi, ormas, partai, atau pun tokoh/panutan/ustadz/kyai dan lain sebagainya.
    Para imam yang empat; Abu Hanifah, Malik, Asy-Syafi’i dan Ahmad telah bersepakat agar umat Islam kembali/merujuk kepada Sunnah Nabi shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam yang shahih di dalam menjalankan agamanya. Sebagaimana pula mereka telah bersepakat agar umat Islam meninggalkan pendapat mereka manakala tidak sesuai dengan Sunnah Nabi shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam yang shahih. Mudah-mudahan hidayah dan taufiq Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala selalu mengiringi kita semua, amin.

Wallahul Muwaffiq wal Hadi ila aqwamit thariq.
1. Yakni sabda Rasulullah shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam:

عُرِضَتْ عَلَيَّ اْلأُمَمُ، فَرَأَيْتُ النَّبِيَّ وَمَعَهُ الرَّهْطُ، وَالنَّبِيَّ وَمعَهُ الرَّجُلُ وَالرَّجُلاَنِ، وَالنَّبِيَّ وَلَيْسَ مَعَهُ أَحَدٌ ....

“Telah ditampakkan kepadaku umat-umat, maka aku melihat seorang nabi bersamanya kurang dari 10 orang, seorang nabi bersamanya satu atau dua orang, dan seorang nabi tidak ada seorang pun yang bersamanya….” (HR. Al-Bukhari no. 5705, 5752, dan Muslim no. 220, dari hadits Abdullah bin ‘Abbas radhiyallahu ‘anhuma)
2.  Perlu diingat, bukan berarti orang yang bertaqlid itu dihukumi sebagai musyrik.

Baca Artikel Lainnya : ALASAN TIDAK MELAKUKAN UMRAH BERULANG KALI SAAT BERADA DI MEKKAH

Generasi Baru Komputer adalah

Saco-Indonesia.com - Selama ini perangkat laptop yang bisa berubah menjadi tablet dikenal dengan nama "convertible" atau "hybrid". Nah, pada gelaran Computex 2013 di Taipei, Taiwan, Intel memperkenalkan nama baru untuk tipe komputer ini agar lebih mudah disebut: 2-in-1 atau dibaca "two in one".

"Konsep dua alat dalam satu kemasan ini mengkombinasikan produktivitas, kemampuan menjalankan aplikasi- aplikasi standar Windows, dan portabilitas," ujar Executive Vice President and General Manager of Sales and Marketing Group Intel Tom Kilroy dalam acara peluncuran prosesor Intel Core Generasi ke-4, Selasa (4/6/2013).

Di masa depan, lanjut Kilroy, komputer 2- in-1 ini akan menjadi tren menggantikan PC dan laptop tradisional. "PC yang lama sudah mati, kini waktunya menciptakan ulang notebook."

Senior Vice President and General Manager PC Client Group Intel Kirk Skaugen menambahkan, komputer 2-in-1 dimaksudkan untuk mengisi celah yang kini ada di antara perangkat untuk konsumsi konten (smartphone dan tablet), dan produktivitas (PC dan notebook).

Prosesor Core Generasi ke-4 yang baru diluncurkan akan menjadi tumpuan Intel dalam mewujudkan fitur-fitur utama pada perangkat 2-in-1, seperti daya tahan baterai yang panjang dan kinerja grafis tinggi. Diharapkan perangkat ini bisa mengkombinasikan aspek produktivitas seperti pada notebook tradisional dan entertainment, seperti di tablet.

Soal harga, Skaugen mengatakan bahwa Intel bersama para partnernya akan terus berusaha membuat perangkat 2-in-1 menjadi alternatif yang terjangkau kantong kebanyakan konsumen.

Harga notebook "convertible" dan "hybrid " selama ini memang relatif mahal dengan kisaran harga mencapai belasan juta rupiah. "Nanti, pada musim liburan tahun ini, sudah akan ada perangkat 2-in-1 seharga 399 dollar (AS)," ujar Skaugen. 

RGOPOKER.COM BANDAR JUDI POKER SITUS POKER ONLINE TERPERCAYA

Rgopoker.com Bandar Judi Poker Situs Poker Online Terpercaya

Ternyata, kafein menyimpan 9 rahasia kesehatan tersembunyi ini!

Selama ini Anda telah mengenal kafein identik dengan kopi. Padahal kafein sendiri adalah senyawa kimia yang telah ditemukan di dalam suatu jenis makanan atau minuman tertentu, termasuk terdapat di dalam kopi.

Banyak kontroversi yang berkembang tentang baik dan buruknya kafein untuk kesehatan. Oleh karena itu sebelum mengonsumsinya, inilah hal yang harus Anda ketahui tentang kafein :

Kebutuhan kafein bervariasi
Setiap orang telah memiliki kondisi kesehatan dan kebutuhan nutrisi yang berbeda. Begitu pula dengan kebutuhan akan kafein. Terutama kebutuhan akan kafein didasarkan pada keadaan metabolisme tubuh, apakah Anda sedang mengonsumsi obat-obatan atau tidak, tingkat insomnia, dan apakah Anda sedang mengandung atau tidak.

Kopi berkafein dan non kafein
Setiap kopi telah mengandung kafein. Namun ada jenis kopi decaf, yaitu kopi yang sudah dihilangkan sebagian besar kafeinnya.

Kafein di dalam kopi
Setiap jenis dan olahan kopi juga mengandung kafein yang sangat berbeda-beda di dalamnya. Secangkir kopi hitam telah memiliki kandungan kafein yang lebih banyak jika dibandingkan dengan kopi susu atau kopi instan lainnya.

Kafein di dalam minuman berenergi
kafein yang ada di dalam kopi bermanfaat untuk dapat membuat tubuh Anda lebih awas. Namun sebuah penelitian telah menunjukkan bahwa kafein yang ada di dalam minuman berenergi justru dapat meningkatkan berat badan sebanyak 29%.

Kafein mengurangi risiko alzheimer
Dalam sebuah penelitian yang berbasis di Florida, peneliti menemukan bahwa mereka yang mengonsumsi kopi sebanyak 3 cangkir sehari mampu terhindar dari risiko penyakit alzheimer.

Kafein menyembuhkan peradangan
Penelitian lain yang dilakukan di University of Illinois menunjukkan bahwa kafein mampu menghalangi peradangan otak yang dapat menyebabkan penyakit otak.

Efek kafein pada kehamilan
Ibu hamil sebaiknya mengurangi konsumsi kafein. Sebab beberapa penelitian juga menunjukkan bahwa ibu hamil yang mengonsumsi kafein secara berlebihan akan berisiko melahirkan bayi prematur, termasuk gangguan pertumbuhan buah hati di masa mendatang.

Pengaruh kafein pada pria dan wanita
Kafein mempunyai pengaruh yang berbeda-beda pada pria dan wanita. Konsumsi kafein akan menurunkan risiko diabetes pada pria, sementara pada wanita justru yang terjadi adalah sebaliknya.

Menghindarkan kanker
Kafein juga mampu memerangi kanker. Wanita yang minum 4 cangkir kopi sehari akan mengalami penurunan risiko kanker endometrium sebanyak 25%.

Itulah beberapa hal tentang kafein yang selama ini jarang terungkap. Kafein dapat bermanfaat positif dan negatif pada tubuh Anda tergantung bagaimana Anda mengonsumsinya.

G.O.P. Hopefuls Now Aiming to Woo the Middle Class

WASHINGTON — The last three men to win the Republican nomination have been the prosperous son of a president (George W. Bush), a senator who could not recall how many homes his family owned (John McCain of Arizona; it was seven) and a private equity executive worth an estimated $200 million (Mitt Romney).

The candidates hoping to be the party’s nominee in 2016 are trying to create a very different set of associations. On Sunday, Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, joined the presidential field.

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida praises his parents, a bartender and a Kmart stock clerk, as he urges audiences not to forget “the workers in our hotel kitchens, the landscaping crews in our neighborhoods, the late-night janitorial staff that clean our offices.”

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a preacher’s son, posts on Twitter about his ham-and-cheese sandwiches and boasts of his coupon-clipping frugality. His $1 Kohl’s sweater has become a campaign celebrity in its own right.

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky laments the existence of “two Americas,” borrowing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s phrase to describe economically and racially troubled communities like Ferguson, Mo., and Detroit.

Photo

 

“Some say, ‘But Democrats care more about the poor,’ ” Mr. Paul likes to say. “If that’s true, why is black unemployment still twice white unemployment? Why has household income declined by $3,500 over the past six years?”

We are in the midst of the Empathy Primary — the rhetorical battleground shaping the Republican presidential field of 2016.

Harmed by the perception that they favor the wealthy at the expense of middle-of-the-road Americans, the party’s contenders are each trying their hardest to get across what the elder George Bush once inelegantly told recession-battered voters in 1992: “Message: I care.”

Their ability to do so — less bluntly, more sincerely — could prove decisive in an election year when power, privilege and family connections will loom large for both parties.

Questions of understanding and compassion cost Republicans in the last election. Mr. Romney, who memorably dismissed the “47 percent” of Americans as freeloaders, lost to President Obama by 63 percentage points among voters who cast their ballots for the candidate who “cares about people like me,” according to exit polls.

And a Pew poll from February showed that people still believe Republicans are indifferent to working Americans: 54 percent said the Republican Party does not care about the middle class.

That taint of callousness explains why Senator Ted Cruz of Texas declared last week that Republicans “are and should be the party of the 47 percent” — and why another son of a president, Jeb Bush, has made economic opportunity the centerpiece of his message.

With his pedigree and considerable wealth — since he left the Florida governor’s office almost a decade ago he has earned millions of dollars sitting on corporate boards and advising banks — Mr. Bush probably has the most complicated task making the argument to voters that he understands their concerns.

On a visit last week to Puerto Rico, Mr. Bush sounded every bit the populist, railing against “elites” who have stifled economic growth and innovation. In the kind of economy he envisions leading, he said: “We wouldn’t have the middle being squeezed. People in poverty would have a chance to rise up. And the social strains that exist — because the haves and have-nots is the big debate in our country today — would subside.”

Continue reading the main story

 

Who Is Running for President (and Who’s Not)?

Republicans’ emphasis on poorer and working-class Americans now represents a shift from the party’s longstanding focus on business owners and “job creators” as the drivers of economic opportunity.

This is intentional, Republican operatives said.

In the last presidential election, Republicans rushed to defend business owners against what they saw as hostility by Democrats to successful, wealthy entrepreneurs.

“Part of what you had was a reaction to the Democrats’ dehumanization of business owners: ‘Oh, you think you started your plumbing company? No you didn’t,’ ” said Grover Norquist, the conservative activist and president of Americans for Tax Reform.

But now, Mr. Norquist said, Republicans should move past that. “Focus on the people in the room who know someone who couldn’t get a job, or a promotion, or a raise because taxes are too high or regulations eat up companies’ time,” he said. “The rich guy can take care of himself.”

Democrats argue that the public will ultimately see through such an approach because Republican positions like opposing a minimum-wage increase and giving private banks a larger role in student loans would hurt working Americans.

“If Republican candidates are just repeating the same tired policies, I’m not sure that smiling while saying it is going to be enough,” said Guy Cecil, a Democratic strategist who is joining a “super PAC” working on behalf of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Republicans have already attacked Mrs. Clinton over the wealth and power she and her husband have accumulated, caricaturing her as an out-of-touch multimillionaire who earns hundreds of thousands of dollars per speech and has not driven a car since 1996.

Mr. Walker hit this theme recently on Fox News, pointing to Mrs. Clinton’s lucrative book deals and her multiple residences. “This is not someone who is connected with everyday Americans,” he said. His own net worth, according to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, is less than a half-million dollars; Mr. Walker also owes tens of thousands of dollars on his credit cards.

But showing off a cheap sweater or boasting of a bootstraps family background not only helps draw a contrast with Mrs. Clinton’s latter-day affluence, it is also an implicit argument against Mr. Bush.

Mr. Walker, who featured a 1998 Saturn with more than 100,000 miles on the odometer in a 2010 campaign ad during his first run for governor, likes to talk about flipping burgers at McDonald’s as a young person. His mother, he has said, grew up on a farm with no indoor plumbing until she was in high school.

Mr. Rubio, among the least wealthy members of the Senate, with an estimated net worth of around a half-million dollars, uses his working-class upbringing as evidence of the “exceptionalism” of America, “where even the son of a bartender and a maid can have the same dreams and the same future as those who come from power and privilege.”

Mr. Cruz alludes to his family’s dysfunction — his parents, he says, were heavy drinkers — and recounts his father’s tale of fleeing Cuba with $100 sewn into his underwear.

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey notes that his father paid his way through college working nights at an ice cream plant.

But sometimes the attempts at projecting authenticity can seem forced. Mr. Christie recently found himself on the defensive after telling a New Hampshire audience, “I don’t consider myself a wealthy man.” Tax returns showed that he and his wife, a longtime Wall Street executive, earned nearly $700,000 in 2013.

The story of success against the odds is a political classic, even if it is one the Republican Party has not been able to tell for a long time. Ronald Reagan liked to say that while he had not been born on the wrong side of the tracks, he could always hear the whistle. Richard Nixon was fond of reminding voters how he was born in a house his father had built.

“Probably the idea that is most attractive to an average voter, and an idea that both Republicans and Democrats try to craft into their messages, is this idea that you can rise from nothing,” said Charles C. W. Cooke, a writer for National Review.

There is a certain delight Republicans take in turning that message to their advantage now.

“That’s what Obama did with Hillary,” Mr. Cooke said. “He acknowledged it openly: ‘This is ridiculous. Look at me, this one-term senator with dark skin and all of America’s unsolved racial problems, running against the wife of the last Democratic president.”

Ghostly Voices From Thomas Edison’s Dolls Can Now Be Heard

Though Robin and Joan Rolfs owned two rare talking dolls manufactured by Thomas Edison’s phonograph company in 1890, they did not dare play the wax cylinder records tucked inside each one.

The Rolfses, longtime collectors of Edison phonographs, knew that if they turned the cranks on the dolls’ backs, the steel phonograph needle might damage or destroy the grooves of the hollow, ring-shaped cylinder. And so for years, the dolls sat side by side inside a display cabinet, bearers of a message from the dawn of sound recording that nobody could hear.

In 1890, Edison’s dolls were a flop; production lasted only six weeks. Children found them difficult to operate and more scary than cuddly. The recordings inside, which featured snippets of nursery rhymes, wore out quickly.

Yet sound historians say the cylinders were the first entertainment records ever made, and the young girls hired to recite the rhymes were the world’s first recording artists.

Year after year, the Rolfses asked experts if there might be a safe way to play the recordings. Then a government laboratory developed a method to play fragile records without touching them.

The technique relies on a microscope to create images of the grooves in exquisite detail. A computer approximates — with great accuracy — the sounds that would have been created by a needle moving through those grooves.

In 2014, the technology was made available for the first time outside the laboratory.

“The fear all along is that we don’t want to damage these records. We don’t want to put a stylus on them,” said Jerry Fabris, the curator of the Thomas Edison Historical Park in West Orange, N.J. “Now we have the technology to play them safely.”

Last month, the Historical Park posted online three never-before-heard Edison doll recordings, including the two from the Rolfses’ collection. “There are probably more out there, and we’re hoping people will now get them digitized,” Mr. Fabris said.

The technology, which is known as Irene (Image, Reconstruct, Erase Noise, Etc.), was developed by the particle physicist Carl Haber and the engineer Earl Cornell at Lawrence Berkeley. Irene extracts sound from cylinder and disk records. It can also reconstruct audio from recordings so badly damaged they were deemed unplayable.

“We are now hearing sounds from history that I did not expect to hear in my lifetime,” Mr. Fabris said.

The Rolfses said they were not sure what to expect in August when they carefully packed their two Edison doll cylinders, still attached to their motors, and drove from their home in Hortonville, Wis., to the National Document Conservation Center in Andover, Mass. The center had recently acquired Irene technology.

Cylinders carry sound in a spiral groove cut by a phonograph recording needle that vibrates up and down, creating a surface made of tiny hills and valleys. In the Irene set-up, a microscope perched above the shaft takes thousands of high-resolution images of small sections of the grooves.

Stitched together, the images provide a topographic map of the cylinder’s surface, charting changes in depth as small as one five-hundredth the thickness of a human hair. Pitch, volume and timbre are all encoded in the hills and valleys and the speed at which the record is played.

At the conservation center, the preservation specialist Mason Vander Lugt attached one of the cylinders to the end of a rotating shaft. Huddled around a computer screen, the Rolfses first saw the wiggly waveform generated by Irene. Then came the digital audio. The words were at first indistinct, but as Mr. Lugt filtered out more of the noise, the rhyme became clearer.

“That was the Eureka moment,” Mr. Rolfs said.

In 1890, a girl in Edison’s laboratory had recited:

There was a little girl,

And she had a little curl

Right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good,

She was very, very good.

But when she was bad, she was horrid.

Recently, the conservation center turned up another surprise.

In 2010, the Woody Guthrie Foundation received 18 oversize phonograph disks from an anonymous donor. No one knew if any of the dirt-stained recordings featured Guthrie, but Tiffany Colannino, then the foundation’s archivist, had stored them unplayed until she heard about Irene.

Last fall, the center extracted audio from one of the records, labeled “Jam Session 9” and emailed the digital file to Ms. Colannino.

“I was just sitting in my dining room, and the next thing I know, I’m hearing Woody,” she said. In between solo performances of “Ladies Auxiliary,” “Jesus Christ,” and “Dead or Alive,” Guthrie tells jokes, offers some back story, and makes the audience laugh. “It is quintessential Guthrie,” Ms. Colannino said.

The Rolfses’ dolls are back in the display cabinet in Wisconsin. But with audio stored on several computers, they now have a permanent voice.

ay 4, 2015 ‘Game of Thrones’ Q&A: Keisha Castle-Hughes on the Tao of the Sand Snakes

“It was really nice to play with other women and not have this underlying tone of being at each other’s throats.”

Richard Suzman, 72, Dies; Researcher Influenced Global Surveys on Aging

At the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Suzman’s signature accomplishment was the central role he played in creating a global network of surveys on aging.

Obama Finds a Bolder Voice on Race Issues

As he reflected on the festering wounds deepened by race and grievance that have been on painful display in America’s cities lately, President Obama on Monday found himself thinking about a young man he had just met named Malachi.

A few minutes before, in a closed-door round-table discussion at Lehman College in the Bronx, Mr. Obama had asked a group of black and Hispanic students from disadvantaged backgrounds what could be done to help them reach their goals. Several talked about counseling and guidance programs.

“Malachi, he just talked about — we should talk about love,” Mr. Obama told a crowd afterward, drifting away from his prepared remarks. “Because Malachi and I shared the fact that our dad wasn’t around and that sometimes we wondered why he wasn’t around and what had happened. But really, that’s what this comes down to is: Do we love these kids?”

Many presidents have governed during times of racial tension, but Mr. Obama is the first to see in the mirror a face that looks like those on the other side of history’s ledger. While his first term was consumed with the economy, war and health care, his second keeps coming back to the societal divide that was not bridged by his election. A president who eschewed focusing on race now seems to have found his voice again as he thinks about how to use his remaining time in office and beyond.

Continue reading the main story Video

Play Video|1:17

Obama Speaks of a ‘Sense of Unfairness’

In the aftermath of racially charged unrest in places like Baltimore, Ferguson, Mo., and New York, Mr. Obama came to the Bronx on Monday for the announcement of a new nonprofit organization that is being spun off from his White House initiative called My Brother’s Keeper. Staked by more than $80 million in commitments from corporations and other donors, the new group, My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, will in effect provide the nucleus for Mr. Obama’s post-presidency, which will begin in January 2017.

“This will remain a mission for me and for Michelle not just for the rest of my presidency but for the rest of my life,” Mr. Obama said. “And the reason is simple,” he added. Referring to some of the youths he had just met, he said: “We see ourselves in these young men. I grew up without a dad. I grew up lost sometimes and adrift, not having a sense of a clear path. The only difference between me and a lot of other young men in this neighborhood and all across the country is that I grew up in an environment that was a little more forgiving.”

Organizers said the new alliance already had financial pledges from companies like American Express, Deloitte, Discovery Communications and News Corporation. The money will be used to help companies address obstacles facing young black and Hispanic men, provide grants to programs for disadvantaged youths, and help communities aid their populations.

Joe Echevarria, a former chief executive of Deloitte, the accounting and consulting firm, will lead the alliance, and among those on its leadership team or advisory group are executives at PepsiCo, News Corporation, Sprint, BET and Prudential Group Insurance; former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell; Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey; former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.; the music star John Legend; the retired athletes Alonzo Mourning, Jerome Bettis and Shaquille O’Neal; and the mayors of Indianapolis, Sacramento and Philadelphia.

The alliance, while nominally independent of the White House, may face some of the same questions confronting former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as she begins another presidential campaign. Some of those donating to the alliance may have interests in government action, and skeptics may wonder whether they are trying to curry favor with the president by contributing.

“The Obama administration will have no role in deciding how donations are screened and what criteria they’ll set at the alliance for donor policies, because it’s an entirely separate entity,” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Air Force One en route to New York. But he added, “I’m confident that the members of the board are well aware of the president’s commitment to transparency.”

The alliance was in the works before the disturbances last week after the death of Freddie Gray, the black man who suffered fatal injuries while in police custody in Baltimore, but it reflected the evolution of Mr. Obama’s presidency. For him, in a way, it is coming back to issues that animated him as a young community organizer and politician. It was his own struggle with race and identity, captured in his youthful memoir, “Dreams From My Father,” that stood him apart from other presidential aspirants.

But that was a side of him that he kept largely to himself through the first years of his presidency while he focused on other priorities like turning the economy around, expanding government-subsidized health care and avoiding electoral land mines en route to re-election.

After securing a second term, Mr. Obama appeared more emboldened. Just a month after his 2013 inauguration, he talked passionately about opportunity and race with a group of teenage boys in Chicago, a moment aides point to as perhaps the first time he had spoken about these issues in such a personal, powerful way as president. A few months later, he publicly lamented the death of Trayvon Martin, a black Florida teenager, saying that “could have been me 35 years ago.”

Photo

 

That case, along with public ruptures of anger over police shootings in Ferguson and elsewhere, have pushed the issue of race and law enforcement onto the public agenda. Aides said they imagined that with his presidency in its final stages, Mr. Obama might be thinking more about what comes next and causes he can advance as a private citizen.

That is not to say that his public discussion of these issues has been universally welcomed. Some conservatives said he had made matters worse by seeming in their view to blame police officers in some of the disputed cases.

“President Obama, when he was elected, could have been a unifying leader,” Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican candidate for president, said at a forum last week. “He has made decisions that I think have inflamed racial tensions.”

On the other side of the ideological spectrum, some liberal African-American activists have complained that Mr. Obama has not done enough to help downtrodden communities. While he is speaking out more, these critics argue, he has hardly used the power of the presidency to make the sort of radical change they say is necessary.

The line Mr. Obama has tried to straddle has been a serrated one. He condemns police brutality as he defends most officers as honorable. He condemns “criminals and thugs” who looted in Baltimore while expressing empathy with those trapped in a cycle of poverty and hopelessness.

In the Bronx on Monday, Mr. Obama bemoaned the death of Brian Moore, a plainclothes New York police officer who had died earlier in the day after being shot in the head Saturday on a Queens street. Most police officers are “good and honest and fair and care deeply about their communities,” even as they put their lives on the line, Mr. Obama said.

“Which is why in addressing the issues in Baltimore or Ferguson or New York, the point I made was that if we’re just looking at policing, we’re looking at it too narrowly,” he added. “If we ask the police to simply contain and control problems that we ourselves have been unwilling to invest and solve, that’s not fair to the communities, it’s not fair to the police.”

Moreover, if society writes off some people, he said, “that’s not the kind of country I want to live in; that’s not what America is about.”

His message to young men like Malachi Hernandez, who attends Boston Latin Academy in Massachusetts, is not to give up.

“I want you to know you matter,” he said. “You matter to us.”

Advertisement Politics Obama Finds a Bolder Voice on Race Issues

As he reflected on the festering wounds deepened by race and grievance that have been on painful display in America’s cities lately, President Obama on Monday found himself thinking about a young man he had just met named Malachi.

A few minutes before, in a closed-door round-table discussion at Lehman College in the Bronx, Mr. Obama had asked a group of black and Hispanic students from disadvantaged backgrounds what could be done to help them reach their goals. Several talked about counseling and guidance programs.

“Malachi, he just talked about — we should talk about love,” Mr. Obama told a crowd afterward, drifting away from his prepared remarks. “Because Malachi and I shared the fact that our dad wasn’t around and that sometimes we wondered why he wasn’t around and what had happened. But really, that’s what this comes down to is: Do we love these kids?”

Many presidents have governed during times of racial tension, but Mr. Obama is the first to see in the mirror a face that looks like those on the other side of history’s ledger. While his first term was consumed with the economy, war and health care, his second keeps coming back to the societal divide that was not bridged by his election. A president who eschewed focusing on race now seems to have found his voice again as he thinks about how to use his remaining time in office and beyond.

Continue reading the main story Video

Play Video|1:17

Obama Speaks of a ‘Sense of Unfairness’

In the aftermath of racially charged unrest in places like Baltimore, Ferguson, Mo., and New York, Mr. Obama came to the Bronx on Monday for the announcement of a new nonprofit organization that is being spun off from his White House initiative called My Brother’s Keeper. Staked by more than $80 million in commitments from corporations and other donors, the new group, My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, will in effect provide the nucleus for Mr. Obama’s post-presidency, which will begin in January 2017.

“This will remain a mission for me and for Michelle not just for the rest of my presidency but for the rest of my life,” Mr. Obama said. “And the reason is simple,” he added. Referring to some of the youths he had just met, he said: “We see ourselves in these young men. I grew up without a dad. I grew up lost sometimes and adrift, not having a sense of a clear path. The only difference between me and a lot of other young men in this neighborhood and all across the country is that I grew up in an environment that was a little more forgiving.”

Organizers said the new alliance already had financial pledges from companies like American Express, Deloitte, Discovery Communications and News Corporation. The money will be used to help companies address obstacles facing young black and Hispanic men, provide grants to programs for disadvantaged youths, and help communities aid their populations.

Joe Echevarria, a former chief executive of Deloitte, the accounting and consulting firm, will lead the alliance, and among those on its leadership team or advisory group are executives at PepsiCo, News Corporation, Sprint, BET and Prudential Group Insurance; former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell; Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey; former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.; the music star John Legend; the retired athletes Alonzo Mourning, Jerome Bettis and Shaquille O’Neal; and the mayors of Indianapolis, Sacramento and Philadelphia.

The alliance, while nominally independent of the White House, may face some of the same questions confronting former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as she begins another presidential campaign. Some of those donating to the alliance may have interests in government action, and skeptics may wonder whether they are trying to curry favor with the president by contributing.

“The Obama administration will have no role in deciding how donations are screened and what criteria they’ll set at the alliance for donor policies, because it’s an entirely separate entity,” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Air Force One en route to New York. But he added, “I’m confident that the members of the board are well aware of the president’s commitment to transparency.”

The alliance was in the works before the disturbances last week after the death of Freddie Gray, the black man who suffered fatal injuries while in police custody in Baltimore, but it reflected the evolution of Mr. Obama’s presidency. For him, in a way, it is coming back to issues that animated him as a young community organizer and politician. It was his own struggle with race and identity, captured in his youthful memoir, “Dreams From My Father,” that stood him apart from other presidential aspirants.

But that was a side of him that he kept largely to himself through the first years of his presidency while he focused on other priorities like turning the economy around, expanding government-subsidized health care and avoiding electoral land mines en route to re-election.

After securing a second term, Mr. Obama appeared more emboldened. Just a month after his 2013 inauguration, he talked passionately about opportunity and race with a group of teenage boys in Chicago, a moment aides point to as perhaps the first time he had spoken about these issues in such a personal, powerful way as president. A few months later, he publicly lamented the death of Trayvon Martin, a black Florida teenager, saying that “could have been me 35 years ago.”

Photo

 

That case, along with public ruptures of anger over police shootings in Ferguson and elsewhere, have pushed the issue of race and law enforcement onto the public agenda. Aides said they imagined that with his presidency in its final stages, Mr. Obama might be thinking more about what comes next and causes he can advance as a private citizen.

That is not to say that his public discussion of these issues has been universally welcomed. Some conservatives said he had made matters worse by seeming in their view to blame police officers in some of the disputed cases.

“President Obama, when he was elected, could have been a unifying leader,” Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican candidate for president, said at a forum last week. “He has made decisions that I think have inflamed racial tensions.”

On the other side of the ideological spectrum, some liberal African-American activists have complained that Mr. Obama has not done enough to help downtrodden communities. While he is speaking out more, these critics argue, he has hardly used the power of the presidency to make the sort of radical change they say is necessary.

The line Mr. Obama has tried to straddle has been a serrated one. He condemns police brutality as he defends most officers as honorable. He condemns “criminals and thugs” who looted in Baltimore while expressing empathy with those trapped in a cycle of poverty and hopelessness.

In the Bronx on Monday, Mr. Obama bemoaned the death of Brian Moore, a plainclothes New York police officer who had died earlier in the day after being shot in the head Saturday on a Queens street. Most police officers are “good and honest and fair and care deeply about their communities,” even as they put their lives on the line, Mr. Obama said.

“Which is why in addressing the issues in Baltimore or Ferguson or New York, the point I made was that if we’re just looking at policing, we’re looking at it too narrowly,” he added. “If we ask the police to simply contain and control problems that we ourselves have been unwilling to invest and solve, that’s not fair to the communities, it’s not fair to the police.”

Moreover, if society writes off some people, he said, “that’s not the kind of country I want to live in; that’s not what America is about.”

His message to young men like Malachi Hernandez, who attends Boston Latin Academy in Massachusetts, is not to give up.

“I want you to know you matter,” he said. “You matter to us.”

Taiwan party leader affirms eventual reunion with China

BEIJING (AP) — The head of Taiwan's Nationalists reaffirmed the party's support for eventual unification with the mainland when he met Monday with Chinese President Xi Jinping as part of continuing rapprochement between the former bitter enemies.

Nationalist Party Chairman Eric Chu, a likely presidential candidate next year, also affirmed Taiwan's desire to join the proposed Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank during the meeting in Beijing. China claims Taiwan as its own territory and doesn't want the island to join using a name that might imply it is an independent country.

Chu's comments during his meeting with Xi were carried live on Hong Kong-based broadcaster Phoenix Television.

The Nationalists were driven to Taiwan by Mao Zedong's Communists during the Chinese civil war in 1949, leading to decades of hostility between the sides. Chu, who took over as party leader in January, is the third Nationalist chairman to visit the mainland and the first since 2009.

Relations between the communist-ruled mainland and the self-governing democratic island of Taiwan began to warm in the 1990s, partly out of their common opposition to Taiwan's formal independence from China, a position advocated by the island's Democratic Progressive Party.

Despite increasingly close economic ties, the prospect of political unification has grown increasingly unpopular on Taiwan, especially with younger voters. Opposition to the Nationalists' pro-China policies was seen as a driver behind heavy local electoral defeats for the party last year that led to Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou resigning as party chairman.

Top News China’s Intents Are Questioned as It Builds in Antarctica

HOBART, Tasmania — Few places seem out of reach for China’s leader, Xi Jinping, who has traveled from European capitals to obscure Pacific and Caribbean islands in pursuit of his nation’s strategic interests.

So perhaps it was not surprising when he turned up last fall in this city on the edge of the Southern Ocean to put down a long-distance marker in another faraway region, Antarctica, 2,000 miles south of this Australian port.

Standing on the deck of an icebreaker that ferries Chinese scientists from this last stop before the frozen continent, Mr. Xi pledged that China would continue to expand in one of the few places on earth that remain unexploited by humans.

He signed a five-year accord with the Australian government that allows Chinese vessels and, in the future, aircraft to resupply for fuel and food before heading south. That will help secure easier access to a region that is believed to have vast oil and mineral resources; huge quantities of high-protein sea life; and for times of possible future dire need, fresh water contained in icebergs.

It was not until 1985, about seven decades after Robert Scott and Roald Amundsen raced to the South Pole, that a team representing Beijing hoisted the Chinese flag over the nation’s first Antarctic research base, the Great Wall Station on King George Island.

But now China seems determined to catch up. As it has bolstered spending on Antarctic research, and as the early explorers, especially the United States and Australia, confront stagnant budgets, there is growing concern about its intentions.

China’s operations on the continent — it opened its fourth research station last year, chose a site for a fifth, and is investing in a second icebreaker and new ice-capable planes and helicopters — are already the fastest growing of the 52 signatories to the Antarctic Treaty. That gentlemen’s agreement reached in 1959 bans military activity on the continent and aims to preserve it as one of the world’s last wildernesses; a related pact prohibits mining.

But Mr. Xi’s visit was another sign that China is positioning itself to take advantage of the continent’s resource potential when the treaty expires in 2048 — or in the event that it is ripped up before, Chinese and Australian experts say.

“So far, our research is natural-science based, but we know there is more and more concern about resource security,” said Yang Huigen, director general of the Polar Research Institute of China, who accompanied Mr. Xi last November on his visit to Hobart and stood with him on the icebreaker, Xue Long, or Snow Dragon.

With that in mind, the polar institute recently opened a new division devoted to the study of resources, law, geopolitics and governance in Antarctica and the Arctic, Mr. Yang said.

Australia, a strategic ally of the United States that has strong economic relations with China, is watching China’s buildup in the Antarctic with a mix of gratitude — China’s presence offers support for Australia’s Antarctic science program, which is short of cash — and wariness.

“We should have no illusions about the deeper agenda — one that has not even been agreed to by Chinese scientists but is driven by Xi, and most likely his successors,” said Peter Jennings, executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and a former senior official in the Australian Department of Defense.

“This is part of a broader pattern of a mercantilist approach all around the world,” Mr. Jennings added. “A big driver of Chinese policy is to secure long-term energy supply and food supply.”

That approach was evident last month when a large Chinese agriculture enterprise announced an expansion of its fishing operations around Antarctica to catch more krill — small, protein-rich crustaceans that are abundant in Antarctic waters.

“The Antarctic is a treasure house for all human beings, and China should go there and share,” Liu Shenli, the chairman of the China National Agricultural Development Group, told China Daily, a state-owned newspaper. China would aim to fish up to two million tons of krill a year, he said, a substantial increase from what it currently harvests.

Because sovereignty over Antarctica is unclear, nations have sought to strengthen their claims over the ice-covered land by building research bases and naming geographic features. China’s fifth station will put it within reach of the six American facilities, and ahead of Australia’s three.

Chinese mappers have also given Chinese names to more than 300 sites, compared with the thousands of locations on the continent with English names.

In the unspoken competition for Antarctica’s future, scientific achievement can also translate into influence. Chinese scientists are driving to be the first to drill and recover an ice core containing tiny air bubbles that provide a record of climate change stretching as far back as 1.5 million years. It is an expensive and delicate effort at which others, including the European Union and Australia, have failed.

In a breakthrough a decade ago, European scientists extracted an ice core nearly two miles long that revealed 800,000 years of climate history. But finding an ice core going back further would allow scientists to examine a change in the earth’s climate cycles believed to have occurred 900,000 to 1.2 million years ago.

China is betting it has found the best location to drill, at an area called Dome A, or Dome Argus, the highest point on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. Though it is considered one of the coldest places on the planet, with temperatures of 130 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, a Chinese expedition explored the area in 2005 and established a research station in 2009.

“The international community has drilled in lots of places, but no luck so far,” said Xiao Cunde, a member of the first party to reach the site and the deputy director of the Institute for Climate Change at the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences. “We think at Dome A we will have a straight shot at the one-million-year ice core.”

Mr. Xiao said China had already begun drilling and hoped to find what scientists are looking for in four to five years.

To support its Antarctic aspirations, China is building a sophisticated $300 million icebreaker that is expected to be ready in a few years, said Xia Limin, deputy director of the Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration in Beijing. It has also bought a high-tech fixed-wing aircraft, outfitted in the United States, for taking sensitive scientific soundings from the ice.

China has chosen the site for its fifth research station at Inexpressible Island, named by a group of British explorers who were stranded at the desolate site in 1912 and survived the winter by excavating a small ice cave.

Mr. Xia said the inhospitable spot was ideal because China did not have a presence in that part of Antarctica, and because the rocky site did not have much snow, making it relatively cheap to build there.

Anne-Marie Brady, a professor of political science at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and the author of a soon-to-be-released book, “China as a Polar Great Power,” said Chinese scientists also believed they had a good chance of finding mineral and energy resources near the site.

“China is playing a long game in Antarctica and keeping other states guessing about its true intentions and interests are part of its poker hand,” she said. But she noted that China’s interest in finding minerals was presented “loud and clear to domestic audiences” as the main reason it was investing in Antarctica.

Because commercial drilling is banned, estimates of energy and mineral resources in Antarctica rely on remote sensing data and comparisons with similar geological environments elsewhere, said Millard F. Coffin, executive director of the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies in Hobart.

But the difficulty of extraction in such severe conditions and uncertainty about future commodity prices make it unlikely that China or any country would defy the ban on mining anytime soon.

Tourism, however, is already booming. Travelers from China are still a relatively small contingent in the Antarctic compared with the more than 13,000 Americans who visited in 2013, and as yet there are no licensed Chinese tour operators.

But that is about to change, said Anthony Bergin, deputy director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. “I understand very soon there will be Chinese tourists on Chinese vessels with all-Chinese crew in the Antarctic,” he said.

Finding Scandal in New York and New Jersey, but No Shame

From sea to shining sea, or at least from one side of the Hudson to the other, politicians you have barely heard of are being accused of wrongdoing. There were so many court proceedings involving public officials on Monday that it was hard to keep up.

In Newark, two underlings of Gov. Chris Christie were arraigned on charges that they were in on the truly deranged plot to block traffic leading onto the George Washington Bridge.

Ten miles away, in Lower Manhattan, Dean G. Skelos, the leader of the New York State Senate, and his son, Adam B. Skelos, were arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on accusations of far more conventional political larceny, involving a job with a sewer company for the son and commissions on title insurance and bond work.

The younger man managed to receive a 150 percent pay increase from the sewer company even though, as he said on tape, he “literally knew nothing about water or, you know, any of that stuff,” according to a criminal complaint the United States attorney’s office filed.

The success of Adam Skelos, 32, was attributed by prosecutors to his father’s influence as the leader of the Senate and as a potentate among state Republicans. The indictment can also be read as one of those unfailingly sad tales of a father who cannot stop indulging a grown son. The senator himself is not alleged to have profited from the schemes, except by being relieved of the burden of underwriting Adam.

The bridge traffic caper is its own species of crazy; what distinguishes the charges against the two Skeloses is the apparent absence of a survival instinct. It is one thing not to know anything about water or that stuff. More remarkable, if true, is the fact that the sewer machinations continued even after the former New York Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, was charged in January with taking bribes disguised as fees.

It was by then common gossip in political and news media circles that Senator Skelos, a Republican, the counterpart in the Senate to Mr. Silver, a Democrat, in the Assembly, could be next in line for the criminal dock. “Stay tuned,” the United States attorney, Preet Bharara said, leaving not much to the imagination.

Even though the cat had been unmistakably belled, Skelos father and son continued to talk about how to advance the interests of the sewer company, though the son did begin to use a burner cellphone, the kind people pay for in cash, with no traceable contracts.

That was indeed prudent, as prosecutors had been wiretapping the cellphones of both men. But it would seem that the burner was of limited value, because by then the prosecutors had managed to secure the help of a business executive who agreed to record calls with the Skeloses. It would further seem that the business executive was more attentive to the perils of pending investigations than the politician.

Through the end of the New York State budget negotiations in March, the hopes of the younger Skelos rested on his father’s ability to devise legislation that would benefit the sewer company. That did not pan out. But Senator Skelos did boast that he had haggled with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, in a successful effort to raise a $150 million allocation for Long Island to $550 million, for what the budget called “transformative economic development projects.” It included money for the kind of work done by the sewer company.

The lawyer for Adam Skelos said he was not guilty and would win in court. Senator Skelos issued a ringing declaration that he was unequivocally innocent.

THIS was also the approach taken in New Jersey by Bill Baroni, a man of great presence and eloquence who stopped outside the federal courthouse to note that he had taken risks as a Republican by bucking his party to support paid family leave, medical marijuana and marriage equality. “I would never risk my career, my job, my reputation for something like this,” Mr. Baroni said. “I am an innocent man.”

The lawyer for his co-defendant, Bridget Anne Kelly, the former deputy chief of staff to Mr. Christie, a Republican, said that she would strongly rebut the charges.

Perhaps they had nothing to do with the lane closings. But neither Mr. Baroni nor Ms. Kelly addressed the question of why they did not return repeated calls from the mayor of Fort Lee, N.J., begging them to stop the traffic tie-ups, over three days.

That silence was a low moment. But perhaps New York hit bottom faster. Senator Skelos, the prosecutors charged, arranged to meet Long Island politicians at the wake of Wenjian Liu, a New York City police officer shot dead in December, to press for payments to the company employing his son.

Sometimes it seems as though for some people, the only thing to be ashamed of is shame itself.

Dave Goldberg, Head of Web Survey Company and Half of a Silicon Valley Power Couple, Dies at 47

By VINDU GOEL and QUENTIN HARDY

Mr. Goldberg was a serial Silicon Valley entrepreneur and venture capitalist who was married to Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook.

Dave Goldberg Was Lifelong Women’s Advocate

Native American Actors Work to Overcome a Long-Documented Bias

Late in April, after Native American actors walked off in disgust from the set of Adam Sandler’s latest film, a western sendup that its distributor, Netflix, has defended as being equally offensive to all, a glow of pride spread through several Native American communities.

Tantoo Cardinal, a Canadian indigenous actress who played Black Shawl in “Dances With Wolves,” recalled thinking to herself, “It’s come.” Larry Sellers, who starred as Cloud Dancing in the 1990s television show “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” thought, “It’s about time.” Jesse Wente, who is Ojibwe and directs film programming at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto, found himself encouraged and surprised. There are so few film roles for indigenous actors, he said, that walking off the set of a major production showed real mettle.

But what didn’t surprise Mr. Wente was the content of the script. According to the actors who walked off the set, the film, titled “The Ridiculous Six,” included a Native American woman who passes out and is revived after white men douse her with alcohol, and another woman squatting to urinate while lighting a peace pipe. “There’s enough history at this point to have set some expectations around these sort of Hollywood depictions,” Mr. Wente said.

The walkout prompted a rhetorical “What do you expect from an Adam Sandler film?,” and a Netflix spokesman said that in the movie, blacks, Mexicans and whites were lampooned as well. But Native American actors and critics said a broader issue was at stake. While mainstream portrayals of native peoples have, Mr. Wente said, become “incrementally better” over the decades, he and others say, they remain far from accurate and reflect a lack of opportunities for Native American performers. What’s more, as Native Americans hunger for representation on screen, critics say the absence of three-dimensional portrayals has very real off-screen consequences.

“Our people are still healing from historical trauma,” said Loren Anthony, one of the actors who walked out. “Our youth are still trying to figure out who they are, where they fit in this society. Kids are killing themselves. They’re not proud of who they are.” They also don’t, he added, see themselves on prime time television or the big screen. Netflix noted while about five people walked off the “The Ridiculous Six” set, 100 or so Native American actors and extras stayed.

But in interviews, nearly a dozen Native American actors and film industry experts said that Mr. Sandler’s humor perpetuated decades-old negative stereotypes. Mr. Anthony said such depictions helped feed the despondency many Native Americans feel, with deadly results: Native Americans have the highest suicide rate out of all the country’s ethnicities.

The on-screen problem is twofold, Mr. Anthony and others said: There’s a paucity of roles for Native Americans — according to the Screen Actors Guild in 2008 they accounted for 0.3 percent of all on-screen parts (those figures have yet to be updated), compared to about 2 percent of the general population — and Native American actors are often perceived in a narrow way.

In his Peabody Award-winning documentary “Reel Injun,” the Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond explored Hollywood depictions of Native Americans over the years, and found they fell into a few stereotypical categories: the Noble Savage, the Drunk Indian, the Mystic, the Indian Princess, the backward tribal people futilely fighting John Wayne and manifest destiny. While the 1990 film “Dances With Wolves” won praise for depicting Native Americans as fully fleshed out human beings, not all indigenous people embraced it. It was still told, critics said, from the colonialists’ point of view. In an interview, John Trudell, a Santee Sioux writer, actor (“Thunderheart”) and the former chairman of the American Indian Movement, described the film as “a story of two white people.”

“God bless ‘Dances with Wolves,’ ” Michael Horse, who played Deputy Hawk in “Twin Peaks,” said sarcastically. “Even ‘Avatar.’ Someone’s got to come save the tribal people.”

Dan Spilo, a partner at Industry Entertainment who represents Adam Beach, one of today’s most prominent Native American actors, said while typecasting dogs many minorities, it is especially intractable when it comes to Native Americans. Casting directors, he said, rarely cast them as police officers, doctors or lawyers. “There’s the belief that the Native American character should be on reservations or riding a horse,” he said.

“We don’t see ourselves,” Mr. Horse said. “We’re still an antiquated culture to them, and to the rest of the world.”

Ms. Cardinal said she was once turned down for the role of the wife of a child-abusing cop because the filmmakers felt that casting her would somehow be “too political.”

Another sore point is the long run of white actors playing American Indians, among them Burt Lancaster, Rock Hudson, Audrey Hepburn and, more recently, Johnny Depp, whose depiction of Tonto in the 2013 film “Lone Ranger,” was viewed as racist by detractors. There are, of course, exceptions. The former A&E series “Longmire,” which, as it happens, will now be on Netflix, was roundly praised for its depiction of life on a Northern Cheyenne reservation, with Lou Diamond Phillips, who is of Cherokee descent, playing a Northern Cheyenne man.

Others also point to the success of Mr. Beach, who played a Mohawk detective in “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and landed a starring role in the forthcoming D C Comics picture “Suicide Squad.” Mr. Beach said he had come across insulting scripts backed by people who don’t see anything wrong with them.

“I’d rather starve than do something that is offensive to my ancestral roots,” Mr. Beach said. “But I think there will always be attempts to drawn on the weakness of native people’s struggles. The savage Indian will always be the savage Indian. The white man will always be smarter and more cunning. The cavalry will always win.”

The solution, Mr. Wente, Mr. Trudell and others said, lies in getting more stories written by and starring Native Americans. But Mr. Wente noted that while independent indigenous film has blossomed in the last two decades, mainstream depictions have yet to catch up. “You have to stop expecting for Hollywood to correct it, because there seems to be no ability or desire to correct it,” Mr. Wente said.

There have been calls to boycott Netflix but, writing for Indian Country Today Media Network, which first broke news of the walk off, the filmmaker Brian Young noted that the distributor also offered a number of films by or about Native Americans.

The furor around “The Ridiculous Six” may drive more people to see it. Then one of the questions that Mr. Trudell, echoing others, had about the film will be answered: “Who the hell laughs at this stuff?”

Meet Mago, Former Heavyweight

GREENWICH, Conn. — Mago is in the bedroom. You can go in.

The big man lies on a hospital bed with his bare feet scraping its bottom rail. His head is propped on a scarlet pillow, the left temple dented, the right side paralyzed. His dark hair is kept just long enough to conceal the scars.

The occasional sounds he makes are understood only by his wife, but he still has that punctuating left hand. In slow motion, the fingers curl and close. A thumbs-up greeting.

Hello, Mago.

This is Magomed Abdusalamov, 34, also known as the Russian Tyson, also known as Mago. He is a former heavyweight boxer who scored four knockouts and 14 technical knockouts in his first 18 professional fights. He preferred to stand between rounds. Sitting conveyed weakness.

But Mago lost his 19th fight, his big chance, at the packed Theater at Madison Square Garden in November 2013. His 19th decision, and his last.

Now here he is, in a small bedroom in a working-class neighborhood in Greenwich, in a modest house his family rents cheap from a devoted friend. The air-pressure machine for his mattress hums like an expectant crowd.

Photo

 

Today is like any other day, except for those days when he is hurried in crisis to the hospital. Every three hours during the night, his slight wife, Bakanay, 28, has risen to turn his 6-foot-3 body — 210 pounds of dead weight. It has to be done. Infections of the gaping bedsore above his tailbone have nearly killed him.

Then, with the help of a young caretaker, Baka has gotten two of their daughters off to elementary school and settled down the toddler. Yes, Mago and Baka are blessed with all girls, but they had also hoped for a son someday.

They feed Mago as they clean him; it’s easier that way. For breakfast, which comes with a side of crushed antiseizure pills, he likes oatmeal with a squirt of Hershey’s chocolate syrup. But even oatmeal must be puréed and fed to him by spoon.

He opens his mouth to indicate more, the way a baby does. But his paralysis has made everything a choking hazard. His water needs a stirring of powdered food thickener, and still he chokes — eh-eh-eh — as he tries to cough up what will not go down.

Mago used to drink only water. No alcohol. Not even soda. A sip of juice would be as far as he dared. Now even water betrays him.

With the caretaker’s help, Baka uses a washcloth and soap to clean his body and shampoo his hair. How handsome still, she has thought. Sometimes, in the night, she leaves the bedroom to watch old videos, just to hear again his voice in the fullness of life. She cries, wipes her eyes and returns, feigning happiness. Mago must never see her sad.

Photo

 

When Baka finishes, Mago is cleanshaven and fresh down to his trimmed and filed toenails. “I want him to look good,” she says.

Theirs was an arranged Muslim marriage in Makhachkala, in the Russian republic of Dagestan. He was 23, she was 18 and their future hinged on boxing. Sometimes they would shadowbox in love, her David to his Goliath. You are so strong, he would tell her.

His father once told him he could either be a bandit or an athlete, but if he chose banditry, “I will kill you.” This paternal advice, Mago later told The Ventura County Reporter, “made it a very easy decision for me.”

Mago won against mediocre competition, in Moscow and Hollywood, Fla., in Las Vegas and Johnstown, Pa. He was knocked down only once, and even then, it surprised more than hurt. He scored a technical knockout in the next round.

It all led up to this: the undercard at the Garden, Mike Perez vs. Magomed Abdusalamov, 10 rounds, on HBO. A win, he believed, would improve his chances of taking on the heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, who sat in the crowd of 4,600 with his fiancée, the actress Hayden Panettiere, watching.

Wearing black-and-red trunks and a green mouth guard, Mago went to work. But in the first round, a hard forearm to his left cheek rocked him. At the bell, he returned to his corner, and this time, he sat down. “I think it’s broken,” he repeatedly said in Russian.

Photo

 

Maybe at that point, somebody — the referee, the ringside doctors, his handlers — should have stopped the fight, under a guiding principle: better one punch too early than one punch too late. But the bloody trade of blows continued into the seventh, eighth, ninth, a hand and orbital bone broken, his face transforming.

Meanwhile, in the family’s apartment in Miami, Baka forced herself to watch the broadcast. She could see it in his swollen eyes. Something was off.

After the final round, Perez raised his tattooed arms in victory, and Mago wandered off in a fog. He had taken 312 punches in about 40 minutes, for a purse of $40,000.

In the locker room, doctors sutured a cut above Mago’s left eye and tested his cognitive abilities. He did not do well. The ambulance that waits in expectation at every fight was not summoned by boxing officials.

Blood was pooling in Mago’s cranial cavity as he left the Garden. He vomited on the pavement while his handlers flagged a taxi to St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital. There, doctors induced a coma and removed part of his skull to drain fluids and ease the swelling.

Then came the stroke.

Photo

 

It is lunchtime now, and the aroma of puréed beef and potatoes lingers. So do the questions.

How will Mago and Baka pay the $2 million in medical bills they owe? What if their friend can no longer offer them this home? Will they win their lawsuits against the five ringside doctors, the referee, and a New York State boxing inspector? What about Mago’s future care?

Most of all: Is this it?

A napkin rests on Mago’s chest. As another spoonful of mush approaches, he opens his mouth, half-swallows, chokes, and coughs until it clears. Eh-eh-eh. Sometimes he turns bluish, but Baka never shows fear. Always happy for Mago.

Some days he is wheeled out for physical therapy or speech therapy. Today, two massage therapists come to knead his half-limp body like a pair of skilled corner men.

Soon, Mago will doze. Then his three daughters, ages 2, 6 and 9, will descend upon him to talk of their day. Not long ago, the oldest lugged his championship belt to school for a proud show-and-tell moment. Her classmates were amazed at the weight of it.

Then, tonight, there will be more puréed food and pulverized medication, more coughing, and more tender care from his wife, before sleep comes.

Goodbye, Mago.

He half-smiles, raises his one good hand, and forms a fist.

Review: ‘Frontline’ Looks at Missteps During the Ebola Outbreak

y NEIL GENZLINGER

Frontline

Frontline An installment of this PBS program looks at the effects of Ebola on Liberia and other countries, as well as the origins of the outbreak.

The program traces the outbreak to its origin, thought to be a tree full of bats in Guinea.

Ruth Rendell, Novelist Who Thrilled and Educated, Dies at 85

Ms. Rendell was a prolific writer of intricately plotted mystery novels that combined psychological insight, social conscience and teeth-chattering terror.

Gene Fullmer, a Brawling Middleweight Champion, Dies at 83

Fullmer, who reigned when fight clubs abounded and Friday night fights were a television staple, was known for his title bouts with Sugar Ray Robinson and Carmen Basilio.