₦airaland Forum

[quote author=Negro_Ntns]lol, ...trust me, its going to be natural! everyman is gettig a push from his ego to be the president and the one everyother man worships. so i dont know why marrying yoruba hausa and igbo will be a problem.

look, the erotic presence of woman is tonic for a man's libido and testosterone. it heightens his anxiety and action....its a distraction. so the more he discharges and off load his fluid the better his ability to focus and perform at his work and civic duties. there are many benefits. lol.
we should stop this talk here and move it to sexuality. in fact we used to have weekly open discussions on sex back when that brazilian girl was on the forum. [/quote]lol

[quote author=Negro_Ntns]anonymous,

oh yeah...im telling you thats one train thats going to be hard to stop. . you can witness in different nations today, particularly the developed nations, how their leaders openly s c rew around and admit to doing it. They always do it but the unlucky ones get caught.

Compared to monogamous households how many polygamous households does the husband pick a rifle and blow his wife's life out or pick a butcher knife and snuff life out of her? A man in sexual heat is a dangerous man....he is worse than a baboon and he will remove the block that is restraining his sexual apetitte.....so if he sees the wife as a restraint, he will get rid of her. In polygamy its different.

In old days kings marry into other tribal groups to solidify alliances and understanding. I am recommending that no person should be voted President of Nigeria unless he has. first been married to women from the three major tribes. That should breed unity. ....in addition to the children. lol.[/quote]well my opinion on the matter is as long as the man involved is taking care of all his wives and children equally, especially financially then it shouldn't be a problem if the parties involved agree to the life style. I don't know about making the president marrying from other tribes lol sounds funny if it isn't naturally done.

ifyalways: You failed to tell us what makes this stone special/mysterious?

As far as I know, my grandmothers grinding stone is more valued ;it makes the best pepper and tomato paste in nanoseconds

LOL

Polygamy in America

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YBs6TbDPUQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tNouIAL-Kg

[quote author=Negro_Ntns]US has given up on prosecuting practicing polygamists becuse they are cautious about the catch 22 of making homosexuality a rights choice and denying the rights to polygamists. so they have decided to look the other way....kind of "dont ask, dont tell" approach.[/quote]I never looked at it that way but there could be truth to it, the more they give homosexuals rights polygamist will request the same to and it is already starting from documentaries/shows I have been seeing

[quote author=Negro_Ntns]they know people are doing it and if they start to crack down it will start a fire. there are people with nothing to do just waiting for the next civil rights bandwagon to camp on and make money and fame.
[/quote]lol

[quote author=Negro_Ntns]if, according to US civil rights act, people have the liberty to chose a sexual lifeatyle of homosexuality, then the liberty of freedom of choice for a woman to coshare her man should not be denied.....neither should a man be restrained from his choice to copulate with multiple women.

....besides, for every 10 married household in US, 9 are in an extra-marital affairs. the economy is poor and getting worse, if this is not the time to have polygamy i dont know what other time is best suited.
[/quote]you have a point but that is tough sell in America, that is why America shouldn't dictate to Nigerians about homosexuality since they are against polygamy in their country. Even though personally I have different opinions about both of these life styles

[quote author=Negro_Ntns]women should join us with their voices and work with us to protect the society and the children. we dont want homosexuality in our communities and we dont want bars and joints in our communities. many women are without homes and protection......let us put them in homes where in the comfort of a husband and their fellow sisters they can share goodwill and an upliftemnt of spirit and fulfillment.
[/quote]I don't think you should worry about that in Nigeria, for the most part it won't fly in Nigeria based on the law that was passed last year

[quote author=Negro_Ntns]they say charity begins at home, me myself i will marry from every ethnic group in nigeria. what a better way to bring unity to our dear country. [/quote]All the power to you lol, I hope you won't add stress for yourself with that quest

[quote author=Ileke-IdI] [/quote]http://www.nigeriafilms.com/news/19920/12/funke-akindeles-hubby-almaroof-welcomes-6th-child-.html

stillwater: I think we should start taxing polygamists especially in Nigeria. For each wife you pay a handful sum to the state. I mean this is a nice way for making more money for the state.

True it will help boast the economy, if used properly, which is a issue with some Nigerians

optimistic7250: There has to be somewhere in the bible that states the black people are cursed. No other race of people bashes their own like black people. I would appreciate if someone can help me find that scripture. One Nigerian man told me that prior to coming to America, his parents explicitly told him, not to marry an African American woman. Funny, that's exactly what he did. I was saddened to hear that parents would advise of such.

I don't agree with the statement, "they feel more comfortable with their own." In America, when Africans come here they make friends with White Americans most of the time. I've even seen some kiss white people in the mouth. There is nothing wrong with that. But it is the antithesis with us.

The one thing I know about men, is that most men are turned off by insecure, desperate women. So, perhaps that is why African men flock to African American women. I would encourage African women when they step onto American soil, is to come with an open mind. To be successful in America, you have to be willing to embrace all kinds of people. America is a country of diverse cultures, religions, ethnicities, etc. That's what makes American unique. President Obama is able to relate to all Americans, and that is why he was elected twice, 93% of African Americans voted for him. We love him! Although his father is Kenyan, he sees himself no different than African Americans. Maybe if more of you came with that mind set, then you would learn that there are not alot of differences between the two.

I am going to be honest, I don't really have african american friends and the few I get a long with are educative and successful. First of all I feel their is a little hype with this divide you are saying because I was born and raised in America from Nigerian parents so I have seen enough to know it is not all that big as you make it seem, but this doesn't downplay what you experienced though but that title you made is to general because many Liberians and South Africans are cool with african americans, However many Africans gravitate in general whether male or female towards people who are their own and to people who are progressive and have similar cultural beliefs as them, and many times africans may see this with non-Africans americans than african americans especially in College and to Africans when it comes to friendship it goes beyond race because of many things. I know many Nigerians that have come from Nigeria where their parents tell them not to marry "Americans" period regardless of race, so it is not just black and white; also I know some Nigerians that it has gone further then that in which Americans they will befriend or not because of negative experiences. When it comes to Obama, well he is culturally african american and white americans, as you said his father is Kenyan but had no connection to his actual black african side culturally which is understandable since he is not fully Kenyan, and he is mixed racially even though he is culturally African american, so to use him as a example is a stretch since he is not culturally African; but as many say if somebody doesn't like you move on who cares.

I must add though when it comes to which group Africans stay away from, it tends to be Hispanics to be honest because many of them are not progressive and don't care for education, so Africans keep their distance from them, which is not as bad as their relationship with Black americans.

Also this thing about african men flocking to African American women or the statement about desperate women(people are going to say you are insulting African women), those issues have nothing to do with your topic, I will advise you to watch out because your thread is straying away from your topic based on your comments, into other topics which will turn this thread into a fiasco since those statements can be interpreted as insults, and will result in people thinking you want to start a african american vs. african thread(which most of the time is started by non-Africans).

ifyalways: Polygamy is an African tradition.

However, it takes lots of greed and less of tradition for a 23 years old lady to consent to mail bride arrangement as a second wife.

Exactly, it is all about the money in the end of the day. I am not saying Funke Akindele is this but she married a wealthy yoruba man who had three before he married her, if he was poor would he have married her.

[quote author=Ileke-IdI]Men are polygamous in nature. It's time to get rid of it.

I blame African women for tolerating the rubbish sef.

Imagine this scenario:

Husband: I am bringing home a new wife

Wife: Ah!! Let us meet her. Let us welcome our new wife.

Nonsenseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

She should be asking him how long he's been having an affair behind her back.[/quote]LOL

Kaxmytex: [size=28pt]nollywood movie....quantity buh no quality...



Dis shows dat we stil gat a lng way 2 go....i believe nollywood movie is stil gonna make wave all over d world...it'z jex a matter of tym and if only we are goin 2 say NO 2 corruption..[/size]

well I agree with this statement, the quality of Nollywood movies has to improve, not just a few but all of them, and if corruption in Nigeria ended that could help big time but Nollywood has already beaten hollywood in Africa, so Nollwyood is getting there, to a point where they themselves don't need hollywood to have recognition or legitimacy as a industry in the world

Kaxmytex: [size=28pt]THE END.[/size]

so thats why you think nollywood can't make it in hollywood box office, interesting. well the article brought up great points thanks for the input

amor4ce: Better polygamy than incest, rape and adultery, especially when the wife is going through pregnancy and her monthly period.

Yeah it is better then adultery, incest and rape but are you saying that while the wife is pregnant or on monthly period the husband can't hold himself for a couple of months

@op
interesting & educative list

kulyie: are u minding him.some people just enjoy talking anyhow before thinking and making all kinds of heresies and blasphemous statements.maybe if he made this statement in kano that allah predestines rape,he wil come out hale and hearty

True, the bottom line is the man is a fool

[b]"IJÉ the Journey, the highest grossing film in West Africa and the most successful film in the history of Nollywood.

Movies are made for the cinemas first before other forms of distribution and cinemas or movie theaters made Hollywood the film capital of the world buoyed by over 38,605 indoor screens in 5,561 sites and 628 outdoor screens in 381 sites in the US, the largest in the world.

Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa with an estimated population of over 160 million people, over 95 million of them use GSM phones, the largest in Africa and millions of them are using the Internet on their mobile devices and PCs ; thus making Nigeria the digital media hub of Africa.

The emergence of Nollywood, the Nigerian film industry has made movies very popular among the millions of Nigerians and foreigners. Nollywood movies have not only become popular collector’s items at homes in Nigeria, but also in other African countries and in the Diaspora making Nollywood one of the largest film industries in the world due to the proliferation of home videos by both the legitimate distributors and the elusive and pervasive pirates at large.

According to a UNESCO report published and posted on the website, the most recent UIS survey results released in 2009 showed that India remains the world’s leading film producer, but Nigeria is closing the gap after overtaking the United States for second place. According to the UIS survey, Bollywood produced 1,091 feature-length films in 2006 compared to 872 productions (in video format) from Nigeria’s film industry, which is commonly referred to as Nollywood. In contrast, the United States produced 485 major films.

The survey noted a unique perspective on how different countries and regions are transforming traditional approaches to the art and industry of film-making especially in video and digital formats.

Of course we cannot compare Nollywood videos made on low budgets to the huge budgets of Hollywood films. But the popularity of Nollywood movies has made MNET’s Africa Magic channel the favourite of millions of cable TV subscribers and launched the first Nigerian million dollar online cinema Iroko TV dubbed "The Netflix of Africa" with over 500,000 subscribers and over 100 million visitors so far.

And this phenomenal growth of Nollywood has challenged many Nigerian filmmakers to improve the professional quality of their movies to compete with those made in Hollywood and Bollywood in world class standards. Some of them have gone as far as attending popular American film schools to learn both the skills and tricks of the trade and have produced some Hollywood standard movies like Chineze Anyaene's IJÉ the Journey, Jeta Amata’s Amazing Grace, Black November and Emperor: The Story of Toussaint l'Ouverture, Stephanie Linus’ Through the Glass, Kunle Afolayan’s The Figurine, Faruk Lasaki’s Changing Faces and others making headlines and winning awards at international film festivals. But none of them has made the official selection or qualified for the competition at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival where underdogs and dark horses from developing countries have been given the opportunities to attract major distributors in the U.S. and Europe; and no Nigerian film has even qualified for the Foreign Language Film category of the Academy Awards, the ultimate zenith for ambitious filmmakers all over the world where South Africa has been nominated and where Tsotsi won the 2005 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film in 2006.

And I have deliberately noted the remarkable achievement of South Africa, because this is an African country not known for churning out thousands of home videos and bragging about them, but better known for making world class films in quality and not in quantity. Therefore, Nigerian filmmakers should learn from the trail blazing South African filmmakers.

Some of the ambitious Nigerian filmmakers have featured notable Hollywood actors and actresses and also used some Hollywood crew in their films to attract the attention of major film distributors in the US and UK, but featuring African American or Caucasian American and European actors in Nigerian movies is not the short-cut to breaking into Hollywood. You can only make it by making world class films telling extraordinary tales like the outstanding foreign films at American cinemas and grossing millions of dollars at the box office this year.

Nigeria's Nollywood is only best known globally as the second largest industry for home videos by mediocre producers and notorious for the piracy of American films. In fact, Nigeria is not even in the 2011 top 10 international box office markets outside the U.S. And many of the stakeholders in Nollywood continue to compete for bragging rights over how Nigeria is the second largest producer of movies in the world instead of admitting that Nigeria is not even a major box office market. No Nigerian film is even listed among the best 100 foreign films so far and the list includes non-Western cultures of Africa, India, China, Japan, Iran and the Middle East, Native American, Mexican, South American, and Caribbean.

It would take a miracle by a conspiracy of the universe for Nollywood movies to get major distribution in the U.S, because the African Americans and Africans in America who would have been the major target audience of Nollywood movies are at the bottom of the ladder of movie goers in the US. The Caucasians who are the majority of movie goers hate Nollywood movies most when compared to other foreign films they don’t even like, because these Americans dislike subtitled and dubbed foreign movies.

According to the duly verified reports of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA):
"Foreign films simply don't play with American audiences. On average, foreign-language movies make up less than 1 percent of the U.S. box office," said Paul Dergarabedian, President of the box office division of Hollywood.com.

The following report on Hollywood box office by Foreign Policy is a comprehensive analysis of the challenges of foreign movies in the U.S. market and noted that Hollywood productions still do far better than foreign films in their home markets.

"We've tried to dub, but then the critics kill you -- and these films play to audiences that pay a lot of attention to reviews," says Mark Gill, the former president of Warner Independent Pictures.

Because investors don't expect foreign films to play well in the United States, still by far the world's largest and most important film market (China and Japan are vying for second place, but each brings in about one-tenth the combined U.S. and Canada box office), they don't get the same production and advertising budgets that Americans do. At the same time, broadcast television networks refuse to buy foreign-language products, leaving a crucial player in film financing absent when it comes to assembling the kind of multi-source deals that get most non-studio pictures made these days.

We have a Lebanese film opening in the spring, Where Do We Go Now?, and in Lebanon it's about to become the top-grossing film ever, beating Titanic," says Tom Bernard, co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, one of the few companies that continue to back foreign releases in the U.S. Despite this, it will only open on 10 screens here, he says -- compared with 3,000-4,000 for major studio releases.

Production values for American films are vastly superior to foreign ones, helped by budgets that can exceed $200 million (100 times the price of many foreign films, and at least 30 times the estimated $6 million-plus budget of Where Do We Go Now?)

There's a strange paradox at play here: While Hollywood films are losing audiences at home, where they're increasingly being siphoned away by social media, games, and the Internet, they're building them abroad. Revenues from American films outside North America constitute more than 60 percent of each year's take by the Hollywood studios, a number that's risen from under 40 percent several decades ago. Paramount Pictures, for instance, made $3.21 billion of its total $5.17 billion earnings in movie theaters for 2011 abroad. This is despite the fact that foreign-made films are gaining an increasing share of their own industries: Japanese are seeing more Japanese films than ever; so are Russians, Chinese, and Koreans. Box office is simply growing across the board in those countries.

Without a strong export market, countries such as China are likely to resist American pressure to deal with the single biggest threat to studio revenue -- piracy -- which has grown rampant thanks to websites operated everywhere from Nigeria to Ukraine. One 2007 study estimated that the U.S. loses $58 billion per year to piracy of movies, television, music, and other intellectual property, and the studios are terrified this will kill their business if it increases. The newly signed deal between the United States and China, allowing more U.S. movies to be shown there, was hailed as revolutionary, adding 14 to the present 20 films that can be screened in that country each year. (The deal has the important caveat, however, that the films be in IMAX or 3D.)

For foreign filmmakers with their foreign movies, making it to the US box office is like cracking the highest glass ceiling in the highly competitive film industry controlled by major film studios and distributors dictating the rules and terms of film business. But some new foreign movies have succeeded in making it to the Hollywood box office.

The successful French movie The Artist made in classic Hollywood style black-and-white about a silent star's fall from grace and subsequent return to fame became the first non-Anglo-Saxon film to win the Best Picture at the 2012 Academy Awards and made over $44,671,682 in North America alone. It was nominated for 10 Academy Awards and won five, including Best Picture, Best Director for Michel Hazanavicius, and Best Actor for Jean Edmond Dujardin making him the first French actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Another notable successful foreign movie The Intouchables has made $13 million at the U.S. box
office since its release in May 2012. And other foreign movies coming up at the U.S. box office include Jacques Audiard's Rust and Bone, opening in Los Angeles on Dec. 7, and Michael Haneke's Amour, opening Dec. 19. Haneke got his Hollywood breakthrough after winning the Palme d'Or twice at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009 and 2012.

See more details on foreign movies at the U.S. box office.

Global box office for all films released in each country around the world reached $32.6 billion in 2011, that’s 3% more than in 2010.

Each international region enjoyed growth in 2011 with the Chinese box office growing by 35% and making it the second largest international market after Japan. And the international box office in the U.S. also grew by 35% in over five years boosted by impressive growths in various markets, including China and Russia.

Hollywood studios have started to invest in foreign films, and companies such as Sony and 20th Century Fox have established divisions that finance "indigenous" film-making (Hollywood parlance for foreign films), but these films are generally restricted to release in their own countries or ones with the same language, like Sony's co-financing of the Bollywood movie Saawariya and Warner Bros with the Hindi film Chandni Chowk to China."[/b]
http://face2faceafrica.com/article/why-many-nollywood-movies-cannot-make-hollywood-box-office

naijababe: I am somewhat undecided on polygamy, it certainly won't be my first choice but Lord knows I'd take it over a husband visiting sluts, ashawos and what have you!

So true

turigee: November 21, 2012 will ever remain indelible in the heart of Oloko villagers as members of the palace guard to the community leader of Ajara Topa community in collaboration with a vigilante group operating in the area arrested a man who allegedly eats and sells human parts to ritualists, operating from a hole he dug under the Gbaji bridge along the Badagry-Seme border.

Joshua Akindele, 56, who hails from Etokia Local Government in Ogun State was spotted by one Anthony Amos who watched him crawl into a hole under the Gbaji bridge, confessed that he had been into cannibalism and ritual killing for the past 15 years, after being introduced to the business by a friend who convinced him to stop driving popular motor cycle known as “Okada” which he claimed profited him a little, but could not sustain him. He further said that he had been earlier sent to prison for 5 years after sleeping with a 17-year old girl.

Speaking with us, Akindele confessed that he was the brain behind the incessant killing within the village using ply woods to hit his human prey, and dragging them into the holes before splitting their parts for food and business… with ritual buyers.

In his statement “I have been in this business for the past 15 years after my friend advised me to stop riding okada and to join him in ritual killing and can-ni-ba-li-sm”
When asked how he carried out his activities, he confessed “Whenever I see somebody walking alone without being conscious of who is watching, I walk slowing up to them and hit them with a big ply wood on their heads after which they fall unconscious, I then drag them into the hole and use a knife to cut them into parts which I sell to some churches and some ready buyers who indulge in ritual killing for easy money, and some times when I feel hungry late in the night, I eat some parts for food.

He confessed further that he sells the parts as follows: Heads 7,500, breast 1,500, penis 1000, hands and legs for 3,500.

Amos who is a member of a vigilante group in the area alerted other members of the group and palace guards of the Baale of Ajara Topa community to monitor the movements of Joshua.

He told us that at about 1am on 21st of November, he was on his normal routine watch when he noticed him (Joshua) crawling into the hole with a rice bag, he quickly alerted other members who confronted him with a gun and ordered him to drop and open what he was carrying. When he did, they discovered rotten human parts; skulls, legs, hands, breasts e.t.c.

We visited the palace of the Baale of Ajara Topa community, Chief Samuel Amosu Owolabi, who after confirming the incident told us that he was sleeping in his palace when an emergency call woke him with the caller informing him that a man had been arrested by members of his palace guards in collaboration with members of the vigilante group with human parts.

Chief Samuel said he quickly called Chief Patifo, Baale of Iyafin whom his community shared the bridge with to accompany him to the scene. When he got there, he noticed a mob had begun beating the suspect and only stopped after he begged them to let him live so that proper investigations will be carried out by the police.
We confirmed the suspect was in the custody of the Badagry police division from a police source who pleaded anonymity.

Source: http://motherlandforum.makeforum.ca/t70-i-sold-human-parts-to-churches-and-ritual-killers-joshua#76

OMG, this person is sick and deserves to die

[quote author=Negro_Ntns]this is our african culture. before islam and christianity our ogun worshipping forefathers practiced polygamy. we should continue this practoce so we dont end up like the westerners where a man has a wife but he spends his money in strip clubs googling over other women and spendig his paycheck on a LovePeddler....or worse, end up in a homosexual relationship.

we dont want homosexuality in our lives and communities and we dont want strip joints....but we will happily take polygamy.[/quote]I'm not a advocate for homosexuality or polygamy however I am neutral with polygamy and not for homosexuality. To me polygamy will always be part of African societies regardless of class or educational status, while homosexuality will always gain ground in the western world. So as long as people know the full realities of both homosexuality and polygamy in this world then it is their prerogative. When it comes to this story though, that African man should have never brought that life style in America; if he knew he wanted to practice that he should have stayed in his country or kept that practice in his country when he is there and when he is in America let it go, with his wife knowing of course. I feel sorry for his wife and he doesn't know he starting more trouble then good in his household.

[b]"She worked at the Red Lobster in Times Square and lived with her husband near Yankee Stadium. Yet one night, returning home from her job, Odine D. discovered that African custom, not American law, held sway over her marriage.

A strange woman was sitting in the living room, and Ms. D.’s husband, a security guard born in Ghana, introduced her as his other wife.

Devastated, Ms. D., a Guinean immigrant who insisted that her last name be withheld, said she protested: “I can’t live with the woman in my house — we have only two bedrooms.” Her husband cited Islamic precepts allowing a man to have up to four wives, and told her to get used to it. And she tried to obey.

Polygamy in America, outlawed in every state but rarely prosecuted, has long been associated with Mormon splinter groups out West, not immigrants in New York. But a fatal fire in a row house in the Bronx on March 7 revealed its presence here, in a world very different from the suburban Utah setting of “Big Love,” the HBO series about polygamists next door.

The city’s mourning for the dead — a woman and nine children in two families from Mali — has been followed by a hushed double take at the domestic arrangements described by relatives: Moussa Magassa, the Mali-born American citizen who owned the house and was the father of five children who perished, had two wives in the home, on different floors. Both survived.

No one knows how prevalent polygamy is in New York. Those who practice it have cause to keep it secret: under immigration law, polygamy is grounds for exclusion from the United States.

Under state law, bigamy can be punished by up to four years in prison,

No agency is known to collect data on polygamous unions, which typically take shape over time and under the radar, often with religious ceremonies overseas and a visitor’s visa for the wife, arranged by other relatives. Some men have one wife in the United States and others abroad.

But the Magassas clearly are not an isolated case. Immigration to New York and other American cities has soared from places where polygamy is lawful and widespread, especially from West African countries like Mali, where demographic surveys show that 43 percent of women are in polygamous marriages.

And the picture that emerges from dozens of interviews with African immigrants, officials and scholars of polygamy is of a clandestine practice that probably involves thousands of New Yorkers.

“It’s difficult, but one accepts it because it’s our religion,” said Doussou Traoré, 52, president of an association of Malian women in New York, who married an older man with two other wives who remain in Mali. “Our mothers accepted it. Our grandmothers accepted it. Why not us?”

Other women spoke bitterly of polygamy. They said their participation was dictated by an African culture of female subjugation and linked polygamy to female genital cutting and domestic violence. That view is echoed by most research on plural marriages, including studies of West African immigrants in France, where the government estimates that 120,000 people live in 20,000 polygamous families.

“The woman is in effect the slave of the man,” said a stylish Guinean businesswoman in her 40s who, like many women interviewed in Harlem and the Bronx, spoke on the condition of anonymity. “If you protest, your husband will hit you, and if you call the police, he’s going to divorce you, and the whole community will scorn you.”

“Even me,” she added. “My husband went to find another wife in Africa, and he has the right to do that. They tell you nothing, until one afternoon he says, ‘O.K., your co-wife arrives this evening.’ ”

Men, in contrast, tended to play down the existence of polygamy, if they were willing to discuss it at all.

Dr. Ousseiny Coulibaly, 36, a gynecologist, was born in Mali and educated in France, where polygamy has long been an explosive immigration and women’s rights issue. Yet he said he was unaware of any cases among his West African patients at Harlem Hospital Center.

“I’m not asking,” he said. “I’m not even suspecting it. There might be so many things I don’t know.”

Don’t-ask-don’t-know policies prevail in many agencies that deal with immigrant families in New York, perhaps because there is no framework for addressing polygamy in a city that prides itself on tolerance of religious, cultural and sexual differences — and on support for human rights and equality.

Last summer, when a nonprofit agency in the Bronx surveyed the needs of the sub-Saharan immigrants in its child care and literacy programs, questionnaires asked about interest in marriage counseling, but not about polygamy.

“This is a very private community,” said Rose Rivera, director of Head Start at the agency, the Women’s Housing and Employment Development Corporation, which largely relies on the fathers to translate for the mothers. “They’re not really ready to trust us.”

Yet on Monday, two Gambian women with children in the program acknowledged, when asked by a reporter, that polygamy was a given in their lives. Both described themselves as “first wives,” married at 16, who joined their husbands in New York in the 1990s, never having attended school.

One, now 36, with three children, said her husband was betrothed to a second wife in Gambia whom he would soon bring to the Bronx. Protest was pointless. “They won’t listen,” she said. “Whether you like it or not, they will marry.”

Islam is often cited as the authority that allows polygamy. But in Africa, the practice is a cultural tradition that crosses religious lines, while some Muslim lands elsewhere sharply restrict it. The Koran says a man should not take more than one wife if he cannot treat them all equally — a very high bar, many Muslims say.

Ms. Traoré, of the Malian women’s group, cited two prosperous households in Bergen County, in New Jersey, that seemed to pass the test.

“They get along very well,” she said of the wives in one home, who married their husband in Africa at the same time. “It’s extraordinary. When they come to our celebrations they dress the same, the same outfit, the same jewels. The husband is completely fair.”

Still, since only one wife could have entered the country as a spouse, the other is probably more vulnerable to deportation, she acknowledged.

More typical, many immigrants said, are cramped apartments in the Bronx with many children underfoot, clashes between jealous co-wives and domestic violence. And if the household breaks up, the wives’ legal status is murky at best, with little case law to guide decisions on marital property or benefits.

Men, too, can end up in polygamous marriages reluctantly, driven by the dictates of clan and culture. That seems to be the case for the husband of Ms. D., the Guinean restaurant worker. Efforts to reach him for this article failed, but as Ms. D. tells it, he insisted he was just as surprised as she was when his first wife, left behind in Ghana, showed up six years ago.

Their match, like many African marriages, had been made by their families before he left for New York. Years later, he met and courted Ms. D. in the Bronx, saying his relationship with his Ghanaian wife was over.

But a year after he married Ms. D. in Guinea and they returned to the Bronx, relatives arranged for a visa for his first wife to join them.

“In Africa, women accept things like that,” Ms. D. said. “Here, the apartments are too small.”

She recalled terrible fights during the three months they all lived together. The conflicts continued after she paid for the first wife to move to another apartment. For eight months, the husband shuttled between the two, but he became abusive, she said. And when Ms. D was five months pregnant, he stopped showing up.

Like many West African women, Ms. D. had been subjected to genital cutting as a child, making sex painful. The other wife had not been cut.

“It’s not life, your man sharing a bed with another woman,” Ms. D. said. “You’re always thinking in your head, ‘does he love me?’ ”

Such stories of polygamy, New York style, are typically shared by women only in whispered conversations in laundries and at hair-braiding salons. With no legal immigration status and no right to asylum from polygamy, many are afraid to expose their husbands to arrest or deportation, which could dishonor and impoverish their families here and in Africa.

But Aminata Kante, an immigrant from Ivory Coast who found help for herself and Ms. D. at Sanctuary for Families, an agency for battered women, uses her own story to urge rebellion.

Wed at 15 in Ivory Coast, over the telephone, to a New York City taxi driver thousands of miles away, Ms. Kante was delivered to her groom on a false passport. She said she endured his abuse for years, bore three children, turned over her paycheck from work as a health aide, and tried harder to appease him when he sent two of the children to Africa.

But something snapped, she said, when he announced that he had taken a teenage second wife, also married, just as she had been, over the phone — a valid wedding in Ivory Coast. Ms. Kante left him. Relatives pressed her to return. Uncles warned that she would be branded a bad woman, and that the stigma would follow her children in Africa. Without papers, vulnerable to deportation, she ended up in a homeless shelter.

But now, at 30, she tells the story in the warm glow of her own living room, her children restored to her, and a green card secured, through unusual legal efforts by lawyers at Sanctuary.

“I know a lady who lives with her husband and another woman in one room, a two-bedroom, with 11 kids,” she said. “I tell her, she has to move — it’s not a life.” And her own husband? His second wife is 23 now, with three children. And recently, Ms. Kante said, he married a third."[/b]
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/23/nyregion/23polygamy.html?pagewanted=all

[b]"An Australian woman was waked up by her hissing cat early Sunday to find a python wrapped around the arm of her 2-year-old daughter.

Tess Guthrie, a 22-year-old from Lismore, New South Wales, said the 6-foot python was wrapped three times around her daughter's arm.

"I thought I was having a nightmare," Guthrie told a local television news station. "It was only because the cat was hissing that I woke up and saw the snake with its body wrapped around my daughter Zara’s arm."

The toddler was sleeping in the bed with Guthrie, who pried the snake off her. But before she could, the nonvenomous python bit the toddler three times on her left hand.

"In my head I was just going through this unbelievable terror, and my thought was that it was going to actually kill her at first, because it was wrapped so tight," Guthrie told the Brisbane Times. "Her little arm was bleeding really bad from the bites, and all I could feel was blood and Zara was screaming by that stage, and I was in hysterics because it was such a shocking thing to wake up to. It was just terrifying."

Zara was taken to a local hospital where she was treated and released. The coastal python (or "carper snake" was captured by a local wildlife official and eventually released back into the wild.

"The snake [had] not in any way, shape or form intended to eat the baby," Tex Tillis, who runs Tex's Snake Removals, told the Daily Telegraph. "It was trying to have a group hug."

"Pythons, underneath their bottom jaw, have a row of sensors which enable them to see the world in terms of infrared pictures," Tillis explained. "So in the dark they're going to see a baby as this warm spot."

Of course, snake invasions are nothing new down under.

Last month, a 3-year-old Australian boy escaped injury after a collection of eggs he had found in his Queensland yard and stashed in his bedroom closet "hatched into a slithering tangle of deadly snakes."

Also in December, a childcare center in Darwin was forced to be shut down before Christmas because of a snake infestation. According to ABC Australia, snake catchers who were called in when a baby python was spotted found a nest with 23 baby pythons and 41 hatched eggs inside a wall."[/b]
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/python-baby-mom-wrapped-cat-175346395.html

[b]" Heidi Klum's split from husband Seal was one of the most shocking breakups of 2012, but don't worry, because she insists that it's really not that bad.

"People say, 'Oh, God, how devastating to go through a divorce,'" Klum says in the the new issue of Marie Claire magazine. "Did I wish for this to happen to my family? No. But everyone is healthy; we're moving on with our lives. If someone got [very sick], God forbid, that would be a real problem. It's not what I wanted – it's not what anyone wanted – but it's not a real problem."
The 39-year-old and her singer hubby of more than six years, who were once so in love they renewed their vows every year on their anniversary, announced their split in January 2012. Since September, Klum's been open about the fact that she's in love with her bodyguard of four years, Martin Kirsten, although she doesn't plan to marry him or anyone else. Ever.

"I don't think so. No. No," insists Klum, who was married to stylist Ric Pipino from 1997 to 2002 before Seal. "I wanted to keep the memory of our wedding alive every year, and that's why I thought it would be fun to get married over and over. But now I don't think it is that important. I'm not angry about anything, but I don't think I will. Maybe if I'm with someone for 15 or 20 years, and we do it in our old age as a fun thing to do .... But I don't have the urgency anymore.
Klum is equally confident in what she does want out of a relationship. "I don't like to feel like the dominant person," the mom of four reveals. "I like to have a strong man by my side. The most important thing is to be free and real. You should never fake something – and I don't mean an orgasm. You should be kind and sometimes do things that other people want, but you have to be you.
She's especially adamant that a partner be honest about their needs in the bedroom. "Some people are more experimental in bed and others are more boring. If you are wild and crazy, bring it on so the other person is well aware that you have little devil horns that come out every once in a while," she says. "It's good to make an effort to dress up sometimes, to do things outside of the norm.
And although the "Project Runway" star is gorgeous as ever, she claims she's not interested in dating a drastically younger man. "I can understand why a woman finds a young man attractive, because the truth is that when men get older, their shape changes," notes Klum, whose show returns to Lifetime this month. "Younger men train more, and when the clothes come off, it is nice to look at a sexy, ripped body. But I am realistic. I'm turning 40 next year; I don't think I could deal with waking up next to a 25-year-old"[/b]
http://omg.yahoo.com/blogs/celeb-news/heidi-klum-don-t-think-ll-marry-again-140148387.html

https://video.lycos.com/img/45/61045-heidi-klum.jpg

congratulations to her

well congratulations to her, her husband looks a little like Denzel in a weird way

[quote author=*Kails*]lol true.
but then again, it's always been a rare occurrence to see or meet any who are in touch of reality.[/quote]you have a point true