The most famous and successful boxer of the late 20th century, Muhammad Ali, was both a symbol and a product of the turbulent times he lived through.

This video clip offers a visual summary of Al's tumultous career: 

Michael Ezra (right) Chair of the American Multicultural Studies Department at Sonoma State University, is the author of Muhammad Ali:  The Making of an Icon. He says the fighter’s decision to change his name form Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali was a dramatic moment in his public history, but  it was even more significant in the behind-the-scenes internal politics within the Nation of Islam.

 The soon-to-be Muhammad Ali stands triumphantly over Sonny Liston as he claims the world heavyweight boxing title in 1964. Watch the rematch here:

From today's perspective, Ali's heyday is sometimes seen as a "golden age" of boxing in America, in no small part because of the quality of the competition that Ali was able to dominate.

 

 

The world has changed in many ways in the 150 years since Charles Darwin published "The Origin of Species." But much remains the same on the Galapagos Islands that inspired his famous theory.  

 

 

 

 

SSS Professor Matt James  returned to the Galapagos Islands earlier this year to recreate the 1905-06 collecting expedition mounted by the San Francisco Academy of Sciences. One of their main goals, even then, was to preserve evidence of the endangered Galapagos tortoise, which, he explains, had been hunted to near extinction by 19^th century sea-farers.

 

Charles Darwin's enduring reputation rests on his theory of natural selection, but prior to that, his greater interest was geology, which he exercised extensively during the early years of the voyage of the Beagle, which arrived at the Galapagos (below) late in its five-year global mapping and collecting expedition.

 

 

 

 

Darwin's finches may be the best-known exemplars of divergent natural selection in the Galapagos islands, but SSU professor Matt James reports that finding was nearly missed, due to Darwin's own sloppy sample-gathering.

 

 

 

 

 

Sonoma State University is adding a new minor in Jewish Studies, a first step toward a full curriculum in Religious Studies

Professor Mike Ezra says the addition of Jewish Studies courses at Sonoma State should help develop wider religious tolerance.

Ezra explains that introducing the Jewish Studies program as a minor allows a wider array of students to particpate.

 

 

 

Anti-Muslim attitudes run so deep at Guantanamo Bay that even an American Army chaplain sent there to minister to the detainees in their own faith wound up imprisoned and abused.

 

 

Chaplain Yee says the response to his book and his speaking appearances has ranged from surprise to support, even among other military personnel.

 

 

 

 Chaplain James Yee was stationed at Guantanamo Bay. He stood up against the cruelty and was imprisoned for 76 days, later to be given an Honorable Discharge in 2005.

 

 

On October 16^th, Chaplain James Yee, author of For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire, will be speaking in Santa Rosa about his fight to "Shut Down Guantanamo Bay." For more information about the event, click here .