Latest news with #LivinginHarmony
The Print
22-05-2025
- Politics
- The Print
As IUML appoints Dalit woman to its leadership, a look at Muslim women's representation in party
Jayanthi Rajan, a local leader from Kerala, and Fathima Muzaffer, a local councillor from Tamil Nadu, were made national assistant secretaries at the party's national committee meeting in Chennai Thursday. Thiruvananthapuram: The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) has appointed two women, including a Hindu Dalit, to its national leadership for the first time in a bid to project a more progressive image amid criticism about the poor representation of women in Kerala politics. 'I am very happy. This is a historical moment. My entire family belongs to the Congress. But I have seen politics rooted in social service in the IUML, unlike in other parties,' Rajan told ThePrint. Rajan, from Irulam village near Wayanad's Sulthan Batheri, joined the IUML in 2008 after a local IUML leader approached her father-in-law. She was working at a church-led charitable organisation then. She says the IUML leader noted that her family, though Congress supporters, had a close relationship with the IUML. Actively involved in various party-affiliated social service initiatives since 2010, she has risen through the ranks from a local women's leader to its state leadership. Locals from Wayanad told ThePrint that Rajan is a crowd-puller with excellent oratory skills. Fathima is a local body councillor representing a ward in Chennai Egmore. She is also a member of the All India Personal Law Board and the Tamil Nadu Waqf Board. She has written several books, including Living in Harmony and Peace Voice. The IUML youth wing's national secretary, Najma Thabsheera, said the inclusion of women at the national level follows years of grassroots efforts to increase female participation. 'Fifty-one percent of IUML members are women. We have seen women rise to leadership roles in state and student wings, too,' she said. Najma too emphasised that Rajan's presence shows the diversity within the League, while Fathima is an inspiration to women. IUML leader Siddhique Ali Rangattoor told ThePrint the League has always embraced other castes and religious groups, as it had supported B.R. Ambedkar during his selection to the constituent assembly. The leader said the party has close to 10,000 non-Muslim members. 'Over time, women have been involved in areas that were dominated by men. So, the political and religious sphere realised that their involvement in politics would benefit the party politically,' Rangattoor told ThePrint. 'Jayanthi has proved her talent in managing the organisation and public speaking. If we have chosen her when there are many other women leaders, that shows political decency in representation,' he added. Political analyst Joseph C. Mathew, however, said the IUML has always tried to reflect diversity in its leadership positions but it's 'just symbolic'. 'They always showed this diversity as they had non-Muslim MLAs in the past. But it's just symbolic. Just because they are including non-Muslims, it will not take away the party's structure and practices that are rooted in religion,' he said. In the 2001 and 2006 assembly elections, the IUML fielded U.C. Raman as an Independent in Kozhikode's Kunnamangalam constituency, which was reserved for Scheduled Castes. Raman won the seat both times. Political representation of Muslim women in Kerala According to the 2011 Census, Muslims account for 26.56 percent of Kerala's population. Though the number of Muslim women is not available, the sex ratio in Kerala is 1,084 females for 1,000 males. But the 140-member Kerala assembly only has 12 women, and just one Muslim woman, the Communist Party of India (Marxist)'s Kanathil Jameela. The IUML, which positions itself as the political voice of the Muslim community, has only fielded two women candidates in its entire electoral history, both of whom were unsuccessful. In 2021, it won 15 out of 25 contested seats in 2021, mostly from Malappuram, which has never had a Muslim woman MLA candidate. Its only woman Lok Sabha candidate was the Left Democratic Front's (LDF's) P.K. Zainaba in 2014, who lost to the IUML's E. Ahamed by nearly 2 lakh votes. In 1996, the IUML fielded its first female candidate, Khamarunnisa Anwar, from Kozhikode II constituency. She lost to the CPI(M)'s Elamaram Kareem. In 2021, Noorbina Rasheed, a senior IUML leader, was fielded from Kozhikode South. She lost to the LDF's Ahamed Devarkovil by over 12,000 votes. 'Noorbina was chosen after so much pressure. I've heard she was given a seat with the least chance of winning, and even party cadres didn't support her campaign,' author Khadija Mumtaz said. She said that while the state's major political parties also hesitate to field women, particularly from the Muslim community, the IUML has always opposed it openly. 'The party has a policy not to have women in politics. Even the leadership controls how they dress and behave,' Mumtaz said, adding the 2009 decision by the then Left government to reserve 50 percent of seats in local body elections for women has played a pivotal role in creating political representation of women, including Kanathil Jameela. 'Discussions are going on. We are expecting some seats this year,' said Najma. She acknowledged, however, that change must come from within the community as well, which is slowly happening. 'There was always disagreement about fielding women until reservations forced the conversation,' she said, adding that there might be opposition from the community against the current decision. (Edited by Sugita Katyal) Also Read: How Left is trying to breach IUML-Congress's Muslim support base in Malabar
Epoch Times
29-04-2025
- Business
- Epoch Times
What to Do in a Town of 18 People? In Harmony on California's Central Coast—Plenty
By Kathe Tanner The Sacramento Bee Driving on Highway 1 about nine miles north of coastal Cayucos, you'll see a couple of signs, seemingly in the middle of scenic nowhere, that say ' Don't blink as you pass the short, steep turnoff just beyond the second sign, the one with the arrow that points you down the hill to Old Creamery Road in the former dairying village's one-block district. Yes, one block. It's worth the stop. Sail past and you'll miss an unparalleled chance to kick back, decompress, and immerse yourself in a quirky, artistic 'downtown' with lots of rural history, longtime artisan shops and a winery, plus curated coffees that are roasted at Hunter Ayers owns Morii Coffee and was raised in Los Osos, and entered the industry right out of high school, working at local cafes and roasteries up and down the coast. Laura Dickinson/The Tribune/TNS There also are other more recent additions to Harmony. Related Stories 4/15/2025 7/1/2023 Hungry? On extended weekends and holiday periods, Harmony's two-vehicle food court offers delicacies that are both upscale and homey. It includes This part of the business district in tiny, downtown Harmony, California, includes a two-vehicle food court and various historic buildings. Harmony Glass Works is in the red-roofed building in back. Laura Dickinson/The Tribune/TNS For a drone's-eye look at downtown and a sweeping overview of the ranches and rolling hills that stretch beyond, go to the hilltop As Mike Rice, the winery's sales manager told The Tribune recently, 'You really can't have a bad day when you work in Harmony.' The same is true when you visit. So, even if you've been to the 2.5-acre burg before—it's often considered to be the smallest village in California—it's probably time for a return visit to get another dose of Harmony. Town Brings Quirky Flavor to North Coast The How about this? For decades, the highway sign just before the turnoff read 'Harmony Pop 18 Elev 175.' Is the mini-town's population still really 18—as locals have claimed for so long—or was it ever? Nobody knows for sure, despite the original sign installed by Caltrans in 1974 and replaced numerous times, according to historian Debbie Soto's 'Living in Harmony' book. This sign was on Highway 1 for decades. It's now downtown in Harmony, still proclaiming the population to be 18. At one time, according to historian Debbie Soto in her book "Living in Harmony," 18 was reputed to be the rather arbitrarily determined number of people living on the ranches next to and in Harmony. Laura Dickinson/The Tribune/TNS But locals will tell you with tongue firmly in cheek, 'We don't want to change the T-shirts.' That population sign is in the middle of downtown now, backdropping a gaily painted, life-sized statue of a cow. And no, you're not imagining that there's another bovine sculpture, an all-white cow, on top of the old Creamery building's roof. Eccentric enough yet? How about this: George Mayer, who owned Harmony from 1977 to 1980, sponsored a legendary 'Doo Dah' parade, which had nowhere to go in the one-block town, so watchers walked around the parade. And don't forget the cherished grave site of the town's longtime mayor, Freddy Cheenie Alfredo—Freddy for short. He was a much-loved and cherished Maine Coon cat. The sociable town mascot lived his entire nine lives in Harmony, passing in 1995 at the ripe old age of 22. Yes, Harmony does whimsy very well. How did Harmony Get Its Start? Perhaps some of that whimsy comes from Harmony's lengthy history of cows, cheese, butter, and lots of dairymen and ranchers. According to various historians, the Swiss Italians founded the creamery there in 1869. In the early 1900s heyday, more than 400 members of The Harmony Creamy Association building encompasses more than a century of dairying and other history in the small town. Laura Dickinson/The Tribune/TNS The iconic building that's now the town's wedding chapel was built with thick stone walls to store dairy products and other perishables. In the '70s, the chapel also was used as a wine and cheese shop. The historic creamery building also housed a rustic, circa 1914 rural post office and, for a time, a small general store where children could buy an ice cream bar for a nickel. The postal service closed the office in 2008. Harmony town has had several owners through the decades. Paul Fields and Ralph Casper, local cabinetmakers, bought the veritable ghost town in 1970. They spent three years getting the commercial zoning and permits needed to restore the neglected town, Soto wrote. Part of the creamery structure used to be where Dillow's Harmony Pasta Factory restaurant was. That part has been vacant for some time, and it's likely to stay that way, at least for the foreseeable future, according to town owner Alan Vander Horst. He said March 31 that it would require a lot of time, work, and money to bring the structure up to code before it could house businesses, especially a restaurant. He and wife Rebecca Vander Horst of San Luis Obispo and Texas bought Harmony in 2014 from a family that had owned it for 17 years. Businesses Settled in, like Harmony Pottery Works Do a fast-forward from creamery days to 1973, when what people think of today as the commercial town of Harmony didn't yet exist. That's when college pals John Schoenstein and Michael Barnes moved their wholesale pottery business from Pomona into a large but rather ramshackle building on the east side of Old Creamery Road. They weren't yet selling retail, and the pair figured 'we could ship from anywhere, so we might as well be somewhere nicer,' Schoenstein said April 3. No other businesses were there yet, he said, 'so we got first choice of the buildings there.' Barnes went on to become a successful real estate broker in Cambria, and Schoenstein kept the shop, which had bowed to popular demand to sell directly to customers. The latter is still there, at 76, selling retail, carry-out only, from his large stock of sculptural and functional pottery. 'We don't do any shipping anymore,' Schoenstein added. John Schoenstein started Harmony Pottery as a wholesale business in Southern California but moved it to Harmony in 1973 after a for-rent ad ran for a vacant building there. Laura Dickinson/The Tribune/TNS Some of the 150 or more potters he represents were with him very early on, including Teresa Campbell, now of Nashville. 'We used to make a lot of pottery in the shop,' Schoenstein said. 'Teresa worked here for a long time and then made pottery in her house in Cambria.' Campbell still supplies Harmony Pottery Works with her unique works, he said. 'She drives out once a year with a lot of pots,' nearly always in the winter, and staying for a couple of months. While there, she makes special mosaic pieces. The Pottery Works' phone has been problematic for some time and there's no website, he said, so it's best to just stop in. John Schoenstein and Michael Barnes started Harmony Pottery as a wholesale business in Southern California but moved it to Harmony in 1973 after a for-rent ad ran for a vacant building there. Barnes is now a retired real estate broker; Schoenstein is still at Harmony Pottery. Laura Dickinson/The Tribune/TNS Add the Fragile Art of Harmony Glassworks In 1975, Carl Radke opened his Phoenix Studios for his art-glass blowing, classes, and retail sales. Renowned for his work with the rare Lustre Art Glass, Radke blew glass at Phoenix Studios, mentored glass blowers and sold his work in Harmony for about four decades. After weathering several recessions and floods, he closed Phoenix in the early 2000s and moved his art glass studio to Templeton. One of his students was Eric Dandurand, who'd gone on to galleries of his own. But in 2007, Dandurand returned to Harmony to open his own It wasn't easy, he told The Tribune in 2015. Bankers were loath to lend toward establishing a glassblowing business. Dandurand mortgaged his home and opened the shop that would exhibit the skills he'd learned from Radke and other talents he'd taught himself along the way. That dogged determination and love of working with glass now keeps him going. 'One of the things I enjoy most about working with glass is that there are endless challenges, techniques and skills to learn,' Dandurand told The Tribune at the time. 'I keep my passion alive by pushing myself and trying new things.' A 'Curiously Quaint Spot to Tie the Knot' Imagine getting married in the cozy, four-pew Harmony Chapel, with its doorway shaped like the truncated wine-cask top, then having a reception in a nearby gazebo and garden. Even Harmony Valley Creamery's website touts the chapel as a 'curiously quaint spot to tie the knot.' The structure holds about 40 seated guests, with space for another 20 willing to stand. So, a wedding party can easily quadruple the town's presumed population. People have been getting married in Harmony for decades. When Jim and Kay Lawrence owned the town from 1981 to 1997, they often welcomed small weddings and receptions. That tradition has continued and expanded. About eight years ago, Harmony even began encouraging elopements, with the town providing the officiant, photographer, champagne toast, and the cake. Gradually, niceties were added to the area, such as the upgraded gazebo, landscaping, and brick paving in the quad and beyond. In recent years, part of the short stretch of Old Creamery Road was blocked off, creating a safer pedestrian area. The century-old, two-bedroom 'Red Cottage' is now a small retreat available as a vacation rental on Airbnb that's ideal for honeymooners or other couples, singles or others. Want even more Harmony in your life and celebration? You can also rent the entire town. Harmony Cellars History Blends Wines and Entertainment Generations of family history envelop That look ahead includes a new entertainment pavilion, designed to hold 150 people or more. In the works for years, the open-sided structure should be completed in time to launch the 2025 season's Twilight Concert Series, according to sales manager Rice. The performances at Harmony Cellars, mostly on Friday nights, begin May 30 and run weekly through Sept. 12. Reservations are recommended for the concerts. The 2025 concert season will be bookended with performances by the popular Carbon City Lights, featuring lead singer Michael Venia, who was a previous contestant on the 21st season of 'The Voice.' Due to hilltop parking constraints during concerts, the winery's people-mover vehicle shuttles attendees up from their spots on Harmony Ranch Road and in downtown. Harmony Cellars is far from a hobby business, according to Rice. 'For 36 years, this has been their life,' he said of land heir Kim Mulligan and her husband Chuck Mulligan, who launched what is now a 7,500-case-a-year, micro-winery boutique production facility and much more. Her great-great-grandfather, Giacomo Barlogio, was one of the founders of the old creamery cooperative in downtown Harmony, according to the winery's website. He started the family's winemaking tradition by dabbling in vinification of homemade wine in his basement. Today's winery sits on a part of Barlogio's original land holdings, which have been in Kim Mulligan's family for four generations. The cellars now encompass not only the production area but a tasting room, a gallery, gift shop, and spaces to host private tastings, parties, weddings, and other events. They have their core wines, and then some that they try out and switch out occasionally. 'For a while, we had a sangiovese, and then we let it go and went to a barbera,' Rice said of two red wines. 'Now, one of our most popular is our sparkling Huzzah wine.' Harmony Cellars' base of the Huzzah, four whites and 13 reds, 'is a lot for a winery our size,' he said. The winery also approaches tastings differently. For the $20 tasting fee, the customer gets tastes of any six wines in the collection. The tasting room is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and a bit later in summer. Newer Businesses Flock to Harmony Alongside its more legacy business, the tiny town also boasts a slew of newer businesses in recent years. One of the town's newer businesses, The treats were sold in a lovingly restored, classic 1957 Divco milk truck, dubbed the 'Scoop Truck.' Their expanded roster of 'udderly awesome' products—which currently include vanilla bean, salted caramel, butter pecan, chocolate, strawberry, coffee, cookies & cream, and mint 'n' chip—are available from the truck and at select markets. Having a special event? Talk to the creamery folks about having them cater the dessert. If you need some caffeine during your visit, consider visiting Hunter Ayers, who opened his Hunter Ayers owns Morii Coffee and was raised in Los Osos, and entered the industry right out of high school, working at local cafes and roasteries up and down the coast. Laura Dickinson/The Tribune/TNS He entered the coffee-roasting industry right out of high school, working at local cafes and roasteries up and down the coast, including Kreuzberg in San Luis Obispo, he told The Tribune. Then he converted part of his family's garage into a roasting space to start his Morii Coffee business in 2020. It opened in Harmony in September 2023, after Ayers' dad introduced his son to the town's owners, the Vander Horsts. Morii's coffees are organic or fair-trade organic, a requirement that also extends to the shop's house-made syrups and milk options. Hunter Ayers owns Morii Coffee and was raised in Los Osos. He entered the industry right out of high school, working at local cafes and roasteries up and down the coast. This is the coffee roaster. Laura Dickinson/The Tribune/TNS The pastries they serve are from Buttercup Bakery in Morro Bay. Morii Coffee is open Thursdays through Mondays from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Meanwhile, it's been an emotional homecoming for longtime chef and entrepreneur Chris Dillow, who opened her Harmony's Tiny Kitchen, which opened Jan. 17, is a return to Harmony for Chris Dillow who formerly owned Harmony Pasta Factory. Laura Dickinson/The Tribune/TNS That included, on the Kitchen's opening day, an accidental reunion with the man who had sold a Main Street Cambria restaurant to Dillow's mom in the 1970s. It's now The Sow's Ear. 'I still can't get over that!' the still astonished Dillow said April 5 about the chance encounter. Her culinary ties to Harmony started nearly 40 years ago. Harmony's Tiny Kitchen, which opened Jan. 17, is a return to Harmony for Chris Dillow, who formerly owned Harmony Pasta Factory. Laura Dickinson/The Tribune/TNS On Dillow's 23rd birthday in 1986, she and her artist husband Dennis Dillow opened their Harmony Pasta Factory restaurant in the burg's circa-1869 Harmony Creamery Building. They were banking on the popularity of the Pasta Luego pasta they made and had introduced to great acclaim a year earlier, selling out of the back of a pickup truck, she said in an email to The Tribune. Her eclectic new take-out eatery in a permanent food truck draws on the chef-owner's restaurant memories from her time there and in other hospitality roles countywide. After selling the Pasta Factory, Dillow continued in the hospitality trade at such places as Big Sky and her own FIG restaurant in Atascadero. At the Kitchen, Dillow adds specials to the small menu, but the mix of sandwich melts, bowls, and 'ode-to-the-Pasta-Factory' pasta dishes remains constant. Among recent offerings were the Ranch Revival Philly-style tri-tip and Gilroy Gold artichoke heart sandwich melts, pastas with pesto, alfredo or marinara sauces, a seasonal soup, and a Moroccan stew. Harmony owner Alan Vander Horst and Dillow's customers and friends call her return to town another 'perfect fit.' 'Harmony's Tiny Kitchen is amazing!' Tiffany Silva of Cayucos said. 'It's a must to go to! Brings back so many amazing memories of date nights at the Harmony Pasta Factory, circa 1990.' The Kitchen serves from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Thursdays through Sundays for now. Copyright 2025 The Sacramento Bee. Visit Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Dear Readers: We would love to hear from you. What topics would you like to read about? Please send your feedback and tips to
