Another compelling perspective on the national deputizing of white men to preserve slavery, through the militia movement, and the 2nd Amendment. Clarity emerges. But 'slavery' is now dead leaving only inanity instead!
Saturday, May 31, 2014
2nd Amendment was ratified to preserve slavery in southern states
http://truth-out.org/news/item/13890-the-second-amendment-was-ratified-to-preserve-slavery
Another compelling perspective on the national deputizing of white men to preserve slavery, through the militia movement, and the 2nd Amendment. Clarity emerges. But 'slavery' is now dead leaving only inanity instead!
Another compelling perspective on the national deputizing of white men to preserve slavery, through the militia movement, and the 2nd Amendment. Clarity emerges. But 'slavery' is now dead leaving only inanity instead!
Friday, May 30, 2014
"Ain't Used to Nothing"
Folks who "ain't used to nothing" usually perform outlandishly when they get it. It could be anything from wasting winnings from the lottery on trifles, or as mundane as hollering at a minor relative's graduation from high school, junior high school, even from preschool. They must clown and act up to be seen, heard, felt, and/or "envied!" Sadly, they do not know or suspect that their behavior is crass!
life entwines uniquely
LIFE ENTWINES UNIQUELY
People are not like iron filings that are magnetized by continued exposure.
Proximity to consciousness or to awareness, even within one's family need not make each member so.
Similarly as genetics does not assure that a champion will breed champions, neither can genetics assure that anyone's offspring will be wise and virtuous like their parents.
Nature must entwine with nurture; time must entwine with space; one's brain must conjoin with one's heart; one's soul must sync with the Holy Spirit, then all must interact with the other in the algorithms of life in order to make you, me, we, us, ad infinitum. Each droplet is unique.
People are not like iron filings that are magnetized by continued exposure.
Proximity to consciousness or to awareness, even within one's family need not make each member so.
Similarly as genetics does not assure that a champion will breed champions, neither can genetics assure that anyone's offspring will be wise and virtuous like their parents.
Nature must entwine with nurture; time must entwine with space; one's brain must conjoin with one's heart; one's soul must sync with the Holy Spirit, then all must interact with the other in the algorithms of life in order to make you, me, we, us, ad infinitum. Each droplet is unique.
Thursday, May 29, 2014
THE INNOCENTS ABROAD, EXCERPT..
"The Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, the English, Moors, Romans, all have battled for Tangier--all have won it and lost it. Here is a ragged oriental-looking negro from some desert place in interior Africa, filling his goat-skin with water from a stained and battered fountain built by the Romans twelve hundred years ago. Yonder is a ruined arch of a bridge built by Julius Caesar nineteen hundred years ago. Men who had seen the infant Savior in the Virgin's arms, have stood upon it, may be.
"Near it are the ruins of a dock-yard where Caesar repaired his ships and loaded grain when he invaded Britain, fifty years before the Christian Era.
"Here, under the quiet stars, these old streets seem thronged with the phantoms of forgotten ages. My eyes are resting upon a spot where stood a monument which was seen and described by Roman historians less than two thousand years ago, whereon was inscribed:
"WE ARE THE CANAANITES. WE ARE THEY THAT HAVE BEEN DRIVEN OUT OF THE LAND OF CANAAN BY THE JEWISH ROBBER, JOSHUA."
P.63, THE INNOCENTS ABROAD, by Mark Twain (Library of America, NY: 1984)
CAPITAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
I have just acquired Piketty's big book, having only begun to read it. Undoubtedly corruption is a major component of income inequality, as American economic, political, and legal history will easily disclose via a vis blacks! Hopefully economists can use Piketty's careful and detail metrics to measure and to quantify the extent of deprivation for purposes of reparations, in whatever form they inevitably may assume!
http://m.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/05/the-problem-with-pikettys-inequality-formula/371653/
http://m.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/05/the-problem-with-pikettys-inequality-formula/371653/
Get your 'MRS' Degree, Too!
Get your 'MRS' Degree. Too!
While you pursue your degree, young lady, be certain that you "pursue" a good husband too. That's wisdom.
Too often the cry had been, "where are the men?" Tyler Perry has built an empire around that question.
When I took my son to Howard to register in 1999. I overheard two giddy young coeds discussing a mutual friend. One said to the other that this third person was "acquiring her MA and her MRS at the same time!" MA I knew as master's degree. But, what kind of degree was an MRS, I wondered? Soon, they started discussing wedding plans, and it hit me like a load of bricks! Marriage is what MRS is about!
Times had changed at alma mater since I finished in the mid-1970s! Then, the emphasis was not on marriage, but on careers. Peers were rubbing shoulders and bodies together, just to have a good time. And now it seems, to waste time too!
But, even then, as I now reflect back, the most perspicacious among us were actively (or with subtlety) seeking marriage partners, while they pursued their college degrees.
Being "old school," I write this admonition to advise young women and young men, that when you go to college, you will be among the best and brightest, most concentrated, collective of beauty, poise, and brains that you are ever apt to encounter again anywhere else on Earth. Take advantage of it! Show yourself to be both wise and learned.
Get your MRS along with whatever other degrees you may acquire in school. Win a double victory thereby!
By the way, my son's wonderful wife found him at Howard U., too, a few years thereafter. Smart girl! Smart guy! Seize the moment of a lifetime!
While you pursue your degree, young lady, be certain that you "pursue" a good husband too. That's wisdom.
Too often the cry had been, "where are the men?" Tyler Perry has built an empire around that question.
When I took my son to Howard to register in 1999. I overheard two giddy young coeds discussing a mutual friend. One said to the other that this third person was "acquiring her MA and her MRS at the same time!" MA I knew as master's degree. But, what kind of degree was an MRS, I wondered? Soon, they started discussing wedding plans, and it hit me like a load of bricks! Marriage is what MRS is about!
Times had changed at alma mater since I finished in the mid-1970s! Then, the emphasis was not on marriage, but on careers. Peers were rubbing shoulders and bodies together, just to have a good time. And now it seems, to waste time too!
But, even then, as I now reflect back, the most perspicacious among us were actively (or with subtlety) seeking marriage partners, while they pursued their college degrees.
Being "old school," I write this admonition to advise young women and young men, that when you go to college, you will be among the best and brightest, most concentrated, collective of beauty, poise, and brains that you are ever apt to encounter again anywhere else on Earth. Take advantage of it! Show yourself to be both wise and learned.
Get your MRS along with whatever other degrees you may acquire in school. Win a double victory thereby!
By the way, my son's wonderful wife found him at Howard U., too, a few years thereafter. Smart girl! Smart guy! Seize the moment of a lifetime!
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
PROPHETS OF DOOM PROFIT FROM DOOM
Prophets of Doom Profit from Doom
Doomsayers dominate headlines because, too often, they profit from the prospect of doom through fear.
They earn profits from doom, these prophets of doom. Take away the profits, away go those prophets.
In America, black people not only survived their black African enslavers' brutality, but they also survived their white captors' death-defying Middle Passage. They survived centuries of enslavement; a war of self-liberation dissembled as a "Civil War." They survived a bloody post-war abnegation, as well as the asserverations of a series of white "scientific" prophets of doom, who learnedly predicted the blacks' imminent extinction, who profited from doomsaying handsomely.
These doomsayers are black and white; liberal and conservative; male and female; "learned" and ignorant; young and old; Christian, Muslim, agnostic, and other.
We are still here, despite them all!
Surely, another power is in play here. Surely, a society whose rancid racism massacred the Indians and the bison; that inspired the rise and triumph the racist paradigms of the Afrikaans, the Nazis, the Japanese, and Mussolini's fascists have been subject to that power from its start.
That power thwarted the plans to colonize, outside the United States of America, those "troublesome" free blacks whose mere existence routed the racist rubric in Presidents ranging from Jefferson to Lincoln. That power thwarted the Jim Crow machinations of Presidents ranging from Andrew Johnson through Woodrow Wilson; and capitalized upon and exploited the slivers of opportunity offered by Presidents from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Eisenhower for that much heralded, seldom-seen, equality of opportunity in every social or economic sector.
Before this "power" every knee must bow, and every tongue must confess, that the Earth is The Lord's and the fullness and the powers thereof, the world and they that dwell therein!
Doomsayers, the darkness is always succeeded by the light, as the dawn always follows the night. So scram!
Doomsayers dominate headlines because, too often, they profit from the prospect of doom through fear.
They earn profits from doom, these prophets of doom. Take away the profits, away go those prophets.
In America, black people not only survived their black African enslavers' brutality, but they also survived their white captors' death-defying Middle Passage. They survived centuries of enslavement; a war of self-liberation dissembled as a "Civil War." They survived a bloody post-war abnegation, as well as the asserverations of a series of white "scientific" prophets of doom, who learnedly predicted the blacks' imminent extinction, who profited from doomsaying handsomely.
These doomsayers are black and white; liberal and conservative; male and female; "learned" and ignorant; young and old; Christian, Muslim, agnostic, and other.
We are still here, despite them all!
Surely, another power is in play here. Surely, a society whose rancid racism massacred the Indians and the bison; that inspired the rise and triumph the racist paradigms of the Afrikaans, the Nazis, the Japanese, and Mussolini's fascists have been subject to that power from its start.
That power thwarted the plans to colonize, outside the United States of America, those "troublesome" free blacks whose mere existence routed the racist rubric in Presidents ranging from Jefferson to Lincoln. That power thwarted the Jim Crow machinations of Presidents ranging from Andrew Johnson through Woodrow Wilson; and capitalized upon and exploited the slivers of opportunity offered by Presidents from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Eisenhower for that much heralded, seldom-seen, equality of opportunity in every social or economic sector.
Before this "power" every knee must bow, and every tongue must confess, that the Earth is The Lord's and the fullness and the powers thereof, the world and they that dwell therein!
Doomsayers, the darkness is always succeeded by the light, as the dawn always follows the night. So scram!
A VERY GOOD THING
A VERY GOOD THING
Blackness and whiteness, and yellowness, brownness, and redness, must be innate American or Australian sociological constructs, as neither of these chromatic differences appears to have any real efficacy in Africa, Asia, Europe. Differences in those places appear to be primarily based upon other distinctions like one's tribe, economic caste, religion, or history.
The Americas, and Australia, involuntarily, and kicking and screaming, finally appear to be going the way of the rest of the world regarding their ingrained, although truly contrived, color distinctions, upon which they have founded their laws, government, society, legal system, economy, religion, education, trade, commerce, culture, implicitly.
That change is a very good thing!
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
STOKELY: A LIFE, EXCERPT
"Carmichael encountered great poverty in the Delta but also witnessed even greater courage. Local people loved him, and he returned their trust and admiration with an affection that soon turned to reverence. Blacks in Mississippi, Carmichael observed, carried themselves with an unassuming dignity and grace he found remarkable. Poor, unlettered sharecroppers made the well-educated young activist proud to be black. Their determination to pursue citizenship and democracy in the face of violence and terror offered profound lessons that he would carry with him for the rest of his life. Living, working, and struggling in Mississippi obliterated Carmichael's preconceived notions about the Delta. He recognized himself as less a missionary on a holy crusade to save wayward souls and more an explorer who had stumbled upon lifelong teachers. 'I met heroes,' Stokely remembered. 'Humble folk, of slight formal education and modest income, who managed to be both generous and wise, who took us in, fed us, instructed us, protected us, and ultimately civilized, educated, and inspired the smart-assed college students.
"Women formed the backbone of the Mississippi movement. ..."
P.48, STOKELY: A LIFE, by Peniel E. Joseph (Basic Civitas: 2014)
Monday, May 26, 2014
THE VALUE OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
THE VALUE OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
"It is no accident that the emergence of Newtonian physics in the seventeenth century and of relativity and quantum mechanics in the twentieth should have been both preceded and accompanied by fundamental philosophical analyses of the research tradition. Nor is it an accident in both these periods that the so-called thought experiment should have played so critical a role in the progress of research... [T]he analytical thought experimentation that bulks so large in the writings of Galileo, Einstein, Bohr, and others is perfectly calculated to expose the old paradigm to existing knowledge in ways that isolate the root of crisis with a clarity unattainable in a laboratory."
p.88, "The Response to Crisis," THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS, by Thomas S. Kuhn (U. of Chicago: 1962, 2012)
"It is no accident that the emergence of Newtonian physics in the seventeenth century and of relativity and quantum mechanics in the twentieth should have been both preceded and accompanied by fundamental philosophical analyses of the research tradition. Nor is it an accident in both these periods that the so-called thought experiment should have played so critical a role in the progress of research... [T]he analytical thought experimentation that bulks so large in the writings of Galileo, Einstein, Bohr, and others is perfectly calculated to expose the old paradigm to existing knowledge in ways that isolate the root of crisis with a clarity unattainable in a laboratory."
p.88, "The Response to Crisis," THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS, by Thomas S. Kuhn (U. of Chicago: 1962, 2012)
CORINTH MISSISSIPPI CONTRABAND CAMP
http://www.nps.gov/shil/planyourvisit/contrabandcamp.htm
What intact, contraband families produced for themselves out of nothing, when left alone in peace: "The camp featured numerous homes, a church, school and hospital. The freedmen cultivated and sold cotton and vegetables in a progressive cooperative farm program. By May 1863, the camp was making a clear profit of $4,000 to $5,000 from it enterprises. By August, over 1,000 African American children and adults gained the ability to read through the efforts of various benevolent organizations. Although the camp had a modest beginning, it became a model camp and allowed for approximately 6,000 ex-slaves to establish their own individual identities."
http://mlsandy.home.tsixroads.com/Corinth_MLSANDY/histcw6.html
"For many who lived and worked at Corinth during its heyday, the
horrors and uncertainty of the war must have ofttimes seemed remote.
But the battlefields were never really far away; the exigencies of
military victory rendered futile any hope of long-term stability for
the camp. The fate of the freedmen was always secondary to the triumph
of the Union cause. General William T. Sherman's Meridian Campaign in
early 1864 brought that fact home to the people of Corinth. [86]
Sherman returned to the Mississippi Valley in January, 1864,
eager to undertake an active winter campaign. His proposed strikes
into Mississippi and Alabama required "about twenty thousand men."
[87] Thus he had already issued orders to recall all the garrisons
"along the Memphis & Charleston Railroad from Corinth back to
Collierville," a point just twenty-four miles east of Memphis. [88]
That such a troop movement would disrupt the work of John Eaton's
Freedmen's Department meant nothing to Ceneral Sherman. [89] "The
order fell like a bomb-shell among our contented people," lamented the
Reverend Mr. Carruthers. "But military orders are preemptory, and
without a reason why, and must be obeyed;..." [90] Although according
to Carruthers the camp was to be evacuated and transported to Memphis
in thirty-six hours, there were, in fact, many delays. The move to the
city began near the end of December, but on January 12, 1864,
Brigadier General J. D. Stevenson, the commander at Corinth,
complained that he still had six hundred more contrabands, for whom
Lieutenant-Colonel Phillips should immediately provide." [91] Bad
weather, damaged bridges, and in Sherman's opinion, plain inertia,
delayed the final evacuation until January 25. [92]
Carruthers reported that the freedmen gave up their comfortable
homes and left their "well-organized village" without complaint, but
the casual destruction of their "model" camp must have shaken
their faith in the benevolence of their Yankee protectors. For as Levi
Coffin noted, "their gardens and farms were abandoned to the rebels,
and they were deprived of the fruit of their labors." [93] They had
little left to show for all the hard work so extolled by their white
friends.
The long journey westward - ninety-three miles from Corinth to
Memphis-and the resettlement proved difficult. An orchard and a
cornfie]d on the bank of the Mississippi, two miles south of the city,
where some seven hundred evacuees from Holly Springs were already
encamped, became the new home for the fifteen hundred Corinth
contrabands. [94] Once again they had to live in tents, with no
stoves or chimneys. To keep warm they had to build a fire in the
middle of the floor. "Such was our condition," explained the Reverend
Mr. Olds, "when the unprecedentedly cold weather ... came upon us."
On New Year's morning the thermometer stood at 11 degrees below
zero! A degree of cold before unknown in Memphis.
It seemed a wonder to me that many of our people did not freeze
to death. Some did die of cold:- but I believe all were those that
were sick at the time. Yet for nearly all of the 5000 freed-men
here [in and around Memphis] those were terrible days of suffering.
[95]
Naturally the move and the harsh weather disrupted the schools,
the churches, the hospitals, and the work of the contrabands. ". . .
just now we have no schools," Olds informed George Whipple on January
9. Not only did the camp site lack adequate facilities, but meeting
the immediate physical needs of the freedmen absorbed most of the
teachers' time. "And there is work enough for them to do for the next
month," Olds estimated. Olds, who at the first of the month received
orders to take "exclusive charge" of the new camp, hoped to reopen the
regular schools and establish an industrial school for the women as
soon as practicable. [96] But on February 20 he had to admit to
Whipple that he had made little progress. [97] The Reverend S. W.
Magill, a traveling inspector for the American Missionary Association,
discovered that the evacuation of Corinth and the other outlying
camps, the lateness of the season, and the emergence of a bitter
jurisdictional dispute between the War and the Treasury Departments
over the control of freedmen's affairs had brought everything to a
standstill. "... people are at a loss what to do," he wrote in
mid-February. "In such a state of things it is difficult to obtain
facilities for teachers & to get the minds of the people set in any
given direction." [98]
What intact, contraband families produced for themselves out of nothing, when left alone in peace: "The camp featured numerous homes, a church, school and hospital. The freedmen cultivated and sold cotton and vegetables in a progressive cooperative farm program. By May 1863, the camp was making a clear profit of $4,000 to $5,000 from it enterprises. By August, over 1,000 African American children and adults gained the ability to read through the efforts of various benevolent organizations. Although the camp had a modest beginning, it became a model camp and allowed for approximately 6,000 ex-slaves to establish their own individual identities."
http://mlsandy.home.tsixroads.com/Corinth_MLSANDY/histcw6.html
"For many who lived and worked at Corinth during its heyday, the
horrors and uncertainty of the war must have ofttimes seemed remote.
But the battlefields were never really far away; the exigencies of
military victory rendered futile any hope of long-term stability for
the camp. The fate of the freedmen was always secondary to the triumph
of the Union cause. General William T. Sherman's Meridian Campaign in
early 1864 brought that fact home to the people of Corinth. [86]
Sherman returned to the Mississippi Valley in January, 1864,
eager to undertake an active winter campaign. His proposed strikes
into Mississippi and Alabama required "about twenty thousand men."
[87] Thus he had already issued orders to recall all the garrisons
"along the Memphis & Charleston Railroad from Corinth back to
Collierville," a point just twenty-four miles east of Memphis. [88]
That such a troop movement would disrupt the work of John Eaton's
Freedmen's Department meant nothing to Ceneral Sherman. [89] "The
order fell like a bomb-shell among our contented people," lamented the
Reverend Mr. Carruthers. "But military orders are preemptory, and
without a reason why, and must be obeyed;..." [90] Although according
to Carruthers the camp was to be evacuated and transported to Memphis
in thirty-six hours, there were, in fact, many delays. The move to the
city began near the end of December, but on January 12, 1864,
Brigadier General J. D. Stevenson, the commander at Corinth,
complained that he still had six hundred more contrabands, for whom
Lieutenant-Colonel Phillips should immediately provide." [91] Bad
weather, damaged bridges, and in Sherman's opinion, plain inertia,
delayed the final evacuation until January 25. [92]
Carruthers reported that the freedmen gave up their comfortable
homes and left their "well-organized village" without complaint, but
the casual destruction of their "model" camp must have shaken
their faith in the benevolence of their Yankee protectors. For as Levi
Coffin noted, "their gardens and farms were abandoned to the rebels,
and they were deprived of the fruit of their labors." [93] They had
little left to show for all the hard work so extolled by their white
friends.
The long journey westward - ninety-three miles from Corinth to
Memphis-and the resettlement proved difficult. An orchard and a
cornfie]d on the bank of the Mississippi, two miles south of the city,
where some seven hundred evacuees from Holly Springs were already
encamped, became the new home for the fifteen hundred Corinth
contrabands. [94] Once again they had to live in tents, with no
stoves or chimneys. To keep warm they had to build a fire in the
middle of the floor. "Such was our condition," explained the Reverend
Mr. Olds, "when the unprecedentedly cold weather ... came upon us."
On New Year's morning the thermometer stood at 11 degrees below
zero! A degree of cold before unknown in Memphis.
It seemed a wonder to me that many of our people did not freeze
to death. Some did die of cold:- but I believe all were those that
were sick at the time. Yet for nearly all of the 5000 freed-men
here [in and around Memphis] those were terrible days of suffering.
[95]
Naturally the move and the harsh weather disrupted the schools,
the churches, the hospitals, and the work of the contrabands. ". . .
just now we have no schools," Olds informed George Whipple on January
9. Not only did the camp site lack adequate facilities, but meeting
the immediate physical needs of the freedmen absorbed most of the
teachers' time. "And there is work enough for them to do for the next
month," Olds estimated. Olds, who at the first of the month received
orders to take "exclusive charge" of the new camp, hoped to reopen the
regular schools and establish an industrial school for the women as
soon as practicable. [96] But on February 20 he had to admit to
Whipple that he had made little progress. [97] The Reverend S. W.
Magill, a traveling inspector for the American Missionary Association,
discovered that the evacuation of Corinth and the other outlying
camps, the lateness of the season, and the emergence of a bitter
jurisdictional dispute between the War and the Treasury Departments
over the control of freedmen's affairs had brought everything to a
standstill. "... people are at a loss what to do," he wrote in
mid-February. "In such a state of things it is difficult to obtain
facilities for teachers & to get the minds of the people set in any
given direction." [98]
Friday, May 23, 2014
THE GREAT 1965 DEBATE: BAYARD RUSTIN V. MALCOLM X AT HOWARD U.
THIS HISTORIC 1965 DEBATE AT HOWARD UNIVERSITY IN 1965 WAS MODERATED BY DR. E. FRANKLIN FRAZIER, UNDER "PROJECT AWARENESS." STOKELY CARMICHEL, A SOPHOMORE, WAS PRESENT. IT IS COVERED IN PENIEL JOSEPH'S BOOK, "STOKELY: A LIFE" (2014)
Biblical reparations
For those who wonder about reparations and freedom for diasporic Africans, read your Bible from the inside out and cover to cover; then, the scales will fall from your eyes; and you will know!
Exodus 12:36 The LORD had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave...
And the LORD gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent to them such things as they required. And they spoiled the Egyptians.
BIBLEHUB.COM
Thursday, May 22, 2014
THE LEGACY OF ARAB-ISLAM IN AFRICA, EXCERPT
"The eclectic religious cosmology of traditional Africa and the consequent 'inclusive religiosity' of Africans, meant that most African Muslims could go for Christian religious arts and services and vice versa or continue to dabble in traditional African religious elements. This eclectic perception of religion was bound to pose a serious challenge to Islam and Christianity with their abrupt and exclusive doctrinal claims. Over the years African Christian and Muslim 'puritans' have expressed concern and open hostility to this phenomenon, describing the 'inclusive religiosity' as 'nominalism,' lack of faith or incomplete conversion, descriptions that reveal a lack of appreciation of African religiosity.
"Indeed, as far as the nominal Muslims and Christians are concerned, trying and experimenting with other traditions is an expression of deep religiosity. To use the words of A.A. Berinyuu, 'it is not a question of lack of faith, or unconversion; it is a question of who can do what when.'...
"However, the point to be noted here is that one of the main reasons advanced to justify military jihad as a religious duty in black Africa by its advocates was the same notion of 'contaminating' Islam with traditional African religious and customary elements, as will be elaborated in chapter 3. In other words, the eighteenth and nineteenth century jihad movements of West Africa were a direct response or reaction to the African tradition of 'inclusive religiosity' which jihadists regarded as a threat to 'orthodox' and 'pure' Islam."
P.51-52, THE LEGACY OF ARAB-ISLAM IN AFRICA, by John Alembillah Azumah (Oxford: 2001, 2011)
REPARATIONS: ANOTHER CASE
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
claim your reparations, soul's salvation
Each must make and take its own reparations, as each must work out and claim its own soul's salvation!
WORK FOR YOUR SOUL'S SALVATION
Shining as Stars
12So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; 13for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.…Phill.2: 12-13
Thomas Jefferson's hypocrisy
"'I tremble for my country, when I recollect that God is just, and that his justice cannot sleep forever. The Almighty has no attribute that can take sides with us in such a struggle.'
"But sad to say, Jefferson is not the only statesman who has spoken high sounding words in favor of freedom, and then left his own children to die slaves."
P.143, "Clotel; or the President's Daughter," WILLIAM WELLS BROWN, CLOTEL AND OTHER WRITINGS, (Library of America, NY: 2014)
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Monday, May 19, 2014
THE SKY GODDESS NUT OF 'THE TWO SKIES'
This image of "the sky goddess Nut of the 'two skies,'" reminds me of the holds of many slave-ships into which our ancestors were packed during the middle passage from Africa to the Americas from the 16-19th centuries. I happened upon this image today in the book, IMHOTEP: THE AFRICAN ARCHITECT OF THE COSMOS, by Robert Bauval and Thomas Brophy, Ph.D. (2013), 149.
Launch Mars Blackmon not Musk!
I just read where NASA had awarded $1.8 billion to Mr. Elon Musk and cronies to explore rocket launch possibilities for Mars. While I love science, this is absurd. "Mars Blackmon"--Spike Lee's infamous character-- and the boys could yield a greater return on capital here on Earth than billionaire Musk above. This stinks!
conscious capability
To be conscious of lack is still to be conscious. With consciousness comes capability. Capability affords the means to cure lack. So, rejoice and be glad!
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Plato's tetrahedron and "Timaeus"
Leading the way will be the primary form [the tetrahedron], the tiniest structure, whose elementary triangle is the one whose hypotenuse is twice the length of its shorter side. Now when a pair of such triangles are juxtaposed along the diagonal [i.e., their hypotenuses] and this is done three times, and their diagonals and short sides converge upon a single point as center, the result is a single equilateral triangle composed of six such triangles. When four of these equilateral triangles are combined, a single solid angle is produced at the junction of three plane angles. This, it turns out, is the angle which comes right after the most obtuse of the plane angles. And once four such solid angles have been completed, we get the primary solid form, which is one that divides the entire circumference [sc. of the sphere in which it is inscribed] into equal and similar parts."
P.1257, TIMAEUS, by Plato, inside of PLATO: COMPLETE WORKS (Hackett Publishing Co., Indianapolis/Cambridge: 1997)
100 black pastors oppose gay marriage in 6th Circuit Appeals amicus brief
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/15/black-pastors-gay-marriage-michigan_n_5332496.html
This fight against gay marriage could easily realign American politics; redefining liberal to consist of 'gay marriage' advocates and conservatives as those opposed. The brief filed in this case has found a seam, which properly pursued, opens up many unforeseen political possibilities in 2016 and beyond. "The Christian, conservative Thomas More Law Center filed an amicus brief in Michigan's gay marriage trial Wednesday on behalf of 110 black pastors from Detroit, elsewhere in Michigan, and Ohio." That alone should be enough to wake up the savvy. "The state's ban on gay marriage was overturned in March by U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman, but the ruling was put on hold as the case is considered by the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals". This is a hot-button issue involving human progeny itself.
HOW TO "UNRING" THE BELL
HOW TO UNRING THE BELL
Instant Communications, via the Internet and cell-phones, with images, graphics, voice, data, and videos, have revolutionized the world and empowered each person on Earth.
Either freely, or inexpensively, on an unprecedented plane, in the billions, individuals have been empowered: person-to-person, nation-to-nation, interest group-to-interest group.
These extraordinary, scientific and technological, communications capacities, formerly the exclusive province of science-fiction writers, governments, or of wealthy secret cabals, have transformed the planet in too many ways to enumerate!
They have, quite literally, knitted together humanity, even as they have transformed the globe for good!
How to "unring" this ominous bell is now what those previously-secure nations and nabobs; mullahs and moguls; mavens and manipulators seek, desperately, to do, singly or jointly, either by regulatory means; or, legislatively, judicially, financially, commercially, educationally, culturally, or militarily.
They all feverishly strive, against this ever-quickening human tide, lest they lose their wealth, power and positions to an uncertain emergent destiny beyond their control.
How to unring the bell?
How to "unring the bell" before the global citizenry becomes aware of the full scope of its new power that it now possesses, unwittingly to: communicate, commiserate, plan, act; to collaborate, to trade, to rehabilitate, to resuscitate, to create, to dissemble, to study, to build, to raise and to spend funds.
With the God of Genesis 11, the world's rulers also wonder aloud in comments canonically imputed to the Creator:
"7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city."
How to "unring the bell" ranks up there with how to reverse the sunshine or the rain or the rotation or the revolution of the Earth!
The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on.... It is much too late! What is done, is done. The bell tolls.
For whom does the bell toll? It tolls for thee.
How to "unring" this ominous bell is now what those previously-secure nations and nabobs; mullahs and moguls; mavens and manipulators seek, desperately, to do, singly or jointly, either by regulatory means; or, legislatively, judicially, financially, commercially, educationally, culturally, or militarily.
They all feverishly strive, against this ever-quickening human tide, lest they lose their wealth, power and positions to an uncertain emergent destiny beyond their control.
How to unring the bell?
How to "unring the bell" before the global citizenry becomes aware of the full scope of its new power that it now possesses, unwittingly to: communicate, commiserate, plan, act; to collaborate, to trade, to rehabilitate, to resuscitate, to create, to dissemble, to study, to build, to raise and to spend funds.
With the God of Genesis 11, the world's rulers also wonder aloud in comments canonically imputed to the Creator:
"7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city."
How to "unring the bell" ranks up there with how to reverse the sunshine or the rain or the rotation or the revolution of the Earth!
The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on.... It is much too late! What is done, is done. The bell tolls.
For whom does the bell toll? It tolls for thee.
JESUS, THE TRUE VINE
Jesus the True Vine
1"I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2"Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. 3"You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.…
1"I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2"Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. 3"You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.…
SILLY QUESTIONS, COMMENTS
SILLY QUESTIONS, COMMENTS
Silly questions, comments belong in silly contexts. They shed light on the interlocutor, only, and none beyond.
In a congress of clueless clowns, silly questions and comments are quite reasonable, convivial, even jocularly welcomed, since, there, jovial jousters and jesters jeer and cheer, each silly sally, joyfully!
But, outside of a college of colorful clowns, silly questions and comments in shedding no light, nor heat upon the topic, only negatively serve to divert the locus of focus from the prevailing context, selfishly, onto themselves!
Such monkey mess is uttered most often for its selfish comedic affect upon others; not for light, not for insight; nor for edification of others; but for aggrandizement of one's self.
Silly questions and comments boldly and brazenly declare their vapid authors' weaknesses and deficiency, not their strengths and sufficiency.
A respectful and observant silence bests silly questions and comments. As the saying goes, " It is much better to remain silent and to maybe be thought a fool, than to open one's mouth, and to remove all doubt!"
Saturday, May 17, 2014
INTEGRATION SPOLIATION IN EDUCATION
Booker T. Washington said that "We can be separate as fingers in all things purely social, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress" in his acclaimed 1895, "Atlanta Exposition" speech. Many liberal historians, and so-called "race leaders" of that era, maligned him and castigated this sentence as "The Atlanta Compromise." These wise words are still presently rejected by liberal, integrationist-civil rights leaders, who persist in pursuing white folks wherever two or three them may gather to get social equality by osmosis, by mere association. The current state of public education in America is, in part, due to this irrational persistence, whose objective was always the social integration of bodies, not the education of minds; nor the redistribution of resources; nor the remediation of inferiority complexes; nor the alleviation of poverty; all of which salutary ends, the "Wizard of Tuskegee," Booker T. Washington sought till his death in 1915 for us.
Thursday, May 15, 2014
ANIMAL AND HUMAN SYMPATHY
Animal and human sympathy
Yesterday, I posted a video of a house cat that chased away a dog--that bit and pulled the cat's owner's child from his little tricycle by the leg.
With a fearless and feral boldness that belied its size, that snarling feline made a beeline for that dog; which let go of that baby's leg and scampered away around a car, before the cat attacked it physically.
So extraordinarily ironic was this sight, and so paradoxical its import, that it set me to musing about sympathy: both animal and human.
In Charles Darwin's THE DESCENT OF MAN, I had recently read about a blind fat pelican. It was fat because its fellow pelicans would feed it. He writes: "Capt. Stansbury found on a salt lake in Utah an old and completely blind pelican, which was very fat, and must have been fed for a long time by his companions. Mr. Blyth, as he inform me, saw Indian crows feeding two or three of their companions that were blind; and I myself have heard of an analogous case with the domestic cock. We may if we choose call such actions instinctive; but such cases are much too rare for the development of any special instinct." P.126 (Penguin Classics, NY: 1879, 2004)
Darwin himself attributes such conduct to animal "sympathizing with each other's distress or danger." He gives another personal example. He writes: "I have myself seen a dog, who never passed a cat who lay sick in a basket, and was a great friend of his, without giving her a few licks with his tongue, the surest sign of kind feeling in a dog." Id.
Such sympathy was certainly shown by the house cat in the above video!
While Darwin affords very many interesting examples of such animal sympathy, I turn now to my own experience as an attorney with human sympathy in state and federal courts in Missouri.
Therein human sympathy is directly and specifically instructed against by the judge as a mandatory general instruction in every civil case in state and federal courts, in Missouri, if not across the country.
Of course, when you strike out sympathy, that leaves only its opposite to wreak havoc: antipathy!
So, sympathy which is displayed in animals toward each other, even those of a different species, is purposefully driven out of humans, by law, at a time when it might be most helpful in reaching a just verdict.
Without necessarily impugning the logic nor fairness of our legal system, state and federal, one may be excused to wonder how and why animal sympathy, as discussed above by Charles Darwin, is somehow antithetical to our current legal system, and how or why animal sympathy should trump that of human sympathy at trial!
The Descent of Man (Penguin Classics)
www.amazon.com
Yesterday, I posted a video of a house cat that chased away a dog--that bit and pulled the cat's owner's child from his little tricycle by the leg.
With a fearless and feral boldness that belied its size, that snarling feline made a beeline for that dog; which let go of that baby's leg and scampered away around a car, before the cat attacked it physically.
So extraordinarily ironic was this sight, and so paradoxical its import, that it set me to musing about sympathy: both animal and human.
In Charles Darwin's THE DESCENT OF MAN, I had recently read about a blind fat pelican. It was fat because its fellow pelicans would feed it. He writes: "Capt. Stansbury found on a salt lake in Utah an old and completely blind pelican, which was very fat, and must have been fed for a long time by his companions. Mr. Blyth, as he inform me, saw Indian crows feeding two or three of their companions that were blind; and I myself have heard of an analogous case with the domestic cock. We may if we choose call such actions instinctive; but such cases are much too rare for the development of any special instinct." P.126 (Penguin Classics, NY: 1879, 2004)
Darwin himself attributes such conduct to animal "sympathizing with each other's distress or danger." He gives another personal example. He writes: "I have myself seen a dog, who never passed a cat who lay sick in a basket, and was a great friend of his, without giving her a few licks with his tongue, the surest sign of kind feeling in a dog." Id.
Such sympathy was certainly shown by the house cat in the above video!
While Darwin affords very many interesting examples of such animal sympathy, I turn now to my own experience as an attorney with human sympathy in state and federal courts in Missouri.
Therein human sympathy is directly and specifically instructed against by the judge as a mandatory general instruction in every civil case in state and federal courts, in Missouri, if not across the country.
Of course, when you strike out sympathy, that leaves only its opposite to wreak havoc: antipathy!
So, sympathy which is displayed in animals toward each other, even those of a different species, is purposefully driven out of humans, by law, at a time when it might be most helpful in reaching a just verdict.
Without necessarily impugning the logic nor fairness of our legal system, state and federal, one may be excused to wonder how and why animal sympathy, as discussed above by Charles Darwin, is somehow antithetical to our current legal system, and how or why animal sympathy should trump that of human sympathy at trial!
The Descent of Man (Penguin Classics)
www.amazon.com
Educational Ponzi Scheme
This educational hoax, that black schools are 'inherently inferior,' when the truth finally comes out, will be found to have ranked as one of the great bait and switch, Ponzi schemes, ever! Any school that is deprived of economic resources and the power to control its own personnel, culture, and curriculum content will be inferior to any other school that is not so constrained! That's academic!
Brown v. Board: With Resegregation, the Struggle Continues
www.theroot.com
Kansas City and the Civil War
Kansas City, Missouri, was surprisingly quiet during the Civil War, although there was considerable activity in Lafayette County to the east; Lawrence, Kansas to the west; and in October 1864, a near-miss came its way in "The Battle of Westport," when Confederate General Sterling Price's 30,000 man army was defeated on the city's then-outskirts and was diverted to the south, back to Arkansas.
From Jonathan B. Fuller to Dear Father | Civil War on the Western Border: The Missouri-Kansas...
civilwaronthewesternborder.org
BLACK INVENTORS THAT DENIED PATENTS PRIOR TO 1870
http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/02/11/5-inventions-by-enslaved-black-men-blocked-by-us-patent-office/
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
GRAPHIC AMERICAN DISPARITIES IN INCOME AND WEALTH
As long as economic disparity in America is tinged with color, most white folks won't care one whit.They are so deranged by unremitting race propaganda, and myths of racial superiority, they think that they are all in the 1%. Conversely, most blacks are so dispirited and mis-educated, they believe and internalize the same racist tripe as most whites, and act upon it, tacitly, while claiming to the contrary.
ECONOMIC DISPARITY
As long as economic disparity in America is tinged with color, most white folks won't care one whit.They are so deranged by unremitting race propaganda, and myths of racial superiority, they think that they are all in the 1%. Conversely, most blacks are so dispirited and mis-educated, they believe and internalize the same racist tripe as most whites, and act upon it, tacitly, while claiming to the contrary.
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
study or else....
UNLESS YOU STUDY, YOU REMAIN VULNERABLE TO THOSE WHO DO, AND, WORSE YET, VICTIMIZED BY THOSE WHO DON'T.
TRADITIONAL AFRICAN RELIGIONS
"'African languages have no equivalent for the western word 'religion' or 'ritual' so in order to consider the religions of Christianity and Islam, they have to start using an alien and imported word. Similarly the practitioners of African traditional religion do not look upon their religious beliefs and practices as a distinct set of activities separated from economic or other ones, nor are they defined as the religions of Yoruba, Zulu, or Kamba peoples as if they were national churches. An old traditionalist on being asked his religion would reply 'I am a Zulu or whatever.'
"Consequently, even though Africans are pervasively religious one cannot talk of 'religion' per se in traditional African terms. In other words one can talk of 'religiosity' but not 'religion' if the former is seen as the awareness and quest for metaphysical phenomena while the latter is seen in terms of a codified and institutionalized set of doctrines and ritual practices. The African way of life in every respect is immersed in 'religion', so much so that asking him/her what is 'religion' is like asking who are you? As a Chinese proverb has it, 'If you want a definition of water, do not ask a fish.' The only definition of 'religion' to the African, therefore, is that it is undefinable; because 'the religion of African does not live in the pages of books on 'world religions' rather it lives in the hearts and lives of people.
"As far as the traditional African is concerned, kinship rather than 'religion' is what distinguishes one community from another. Muslim groups were seen as any other lineage or clan, with their own culture of which Islam was just a part of the whole. Islam as a way of life and a system of beliefs and practices was therefore conceived by the wider non-Muslim community in relation to particular ethnic groups. It was hardly seen as an institutionalized universe of beliefs and practices meant for everyone to belong. In traditional African thought, therefore, one can speak of religious figures like priestesses rather than 'religious communities.'"
P. 48-49, THE LEGACY OF ARAB-ISLAM IN AFRICA, by John Alembillah Azumah (Oxford: 2011)
Monday, May 12, 2014
DIDDY DID IT!
Dr. Sean 'P Diddy' Combs' amazing commencement address at Howard University on May 10, 2014! http://www.howard.edu/newsroom/releases/2014/2014HowardUniversitySeanCombsCommencementSpeech.html
MULTIPLE SOLUTIONS TO ANY PROBLEM
How many ways might a problem be solved?
In various mathematics classes in my public schools, we were typically taught "the" solution, as though there is/was only one way to get "the" correct answer.
Well, as there are "many ways to skin a cat," there are apparently many solutions to problems.
"Abu Kamil may have been the first mathematician who instead of simply finding a solution to a problem was interested in finding ALL the possible solutions. In his book BOOK OF RARE THINGS IN THE ART OF CALCULATION he even describes one problem for which he found 2,678 solutions." p. 89-90, THE GOLDEN RATIO by Mario Livio (2002)
If this is true for mathematics, might not this also be true for life's other problems as well?
I would think so. I would thank Abu Kamil, "the Calculator from Egypt," who lived was "born around 850, probably in Egypt, and died around 930." I would also thank Mr. Livio for introducing me to Abu Kamil Shuja, known as al-Hasib al-Misri, for this great insight!
So, as "all roads that lead to Rome," don't get bogged down with one. Try another!
Sunday, May 11, 2014
CONQUERING SIN AND IGNORANCE
"As the chief moral guardian of the community, the church must implore men to be good and well-intentioned and must extol the virtues of kindheartedness and conscientiousness. But somewhere along the way the church must remind men that devoid of intelligence, goodness and conscientiousness will become brutal forces leading to shameful crucifixions. Never must the church tire of reminding men that they have a moral responsibility to be intelligent.
"Must we not admit that the church has often overlooked this moral demand for enlightenment ? At times it has talked as though ignorance were a virtue and intelligence a crime. Through obscurantism, closed mindedness, and obstinacy to the truth, the church has often unconsciously encouraged its worshippers to look askance upon intelligence.
"But if we are to call ourselves Christians, we had better avoid intellectual and moral blindness. Throughout the New Testament we are reminded of the need for enlightenment. We are commanded to love God, not only with our hearts and souls but also with our minds. When the Apostle Paul noticed the blindness of many of his opponents, he said, "I bear them record that they have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge." Over and over again the Bible reminds us of the danger of zeal without knowledge and sincerity without intelligence.
"So we have a mandate both to conquer sin and also to conquer ignorance...
"'They know not what they do,' said Jesus. Blindness was their besetting trouble. And the crux of the matter lies here: we do need to be blind. Unlike physical blindness that is usually inflicted upon individuals as a result of natural forces beyond their control, intellectual and moral blindness is a dilemma that man inflicts upon himself by his tragic misuse of freedom and his failure to use his mind to its fullest capacity. One day we will learn that the heart can never be totally right if the head is totally wrong. Only through the bringing together of head and heart--intelligence and goodness--shall man rise to a fulfillment of his true nature. Neither is this to say that one must be a philosopher or a possessor of extensive academic training before he can achieve the good life. I know many people of limited formal training who have amazing intelligence and foresight. The call for intelligence is a call for open mindedness, sound judgment, and a love for truth. It is a call for men to rise above the stagnation of closed mindedness and the paralysis of gullibility. One does not need to be a profound scholar to be open minded nor, nor a keen academician to engage in an assiduous pursuit of truth.
"Light has come into this world. A voice crying through the vista of time calls men to walk in the light. Man's earthly life will become a tragic cosmic elegy if he fails to heed this call. 'This is the condemnation,' says John, 'that light is come into this world and that man loved darkness rather than light.'"
P.39-41, "Love in Action," STRENGTH TO LOVE, by Martin Luther King, Jr. (Fortress Press, Minn. MN: 1963, 2010)
POETRY
Poetry congeals and conceals the energy, the beauty and the coherent continuity of the INFINITE rhetorically and representatively into words whose livery is rhyme rhythm reason.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Matthew 25:14-30
Matthew 25:14-30
English Standard Version (ESV)
The Parable of the Talents
14 “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants[a] and entrusted to them his property. 15 To one he gave five talents,[b] to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. 17 So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. 18 But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. 19 Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. 20 And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.[c] You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 22 And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here I have made two talents more.’ 23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
TAKE REPARATIONS!
Why wait for reparations to be "given?" Take them! Our ancestors learned to take! Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness being their primary, foremost takings!
2 Corinthians 3:4-6
2 Corinthians 3:4-6
New King James Version (NKJV)
The Spirit, Not the Letter
4 And we have such trust through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit;[a] for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
Friday, May 9, 2014
EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATIONS, PRE-LINCOLN'S
Gen. John C. Fremont emancipated the slaves in his military Department of the West--on August 30, 1861, in St. Louis, Missouri, owing to military necessity. In this respect, he preceded General David Hunter, commander of the Department of the South, who issued his proclamation on May 9, 1862. Abraham Lincoln rescinded Fremont's field order on September 11, 1861, for purposes of political expediency, hoping to induce the South to accept his gradual emancipation compromises with compensation for freed slaves. He did the same to Hunter's (pictured right) within days also. A few months later, in September 1862, even tepid Lincoln was, militarily, forced to reprise the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamations of his knowledgeable Generals David Hunter and John Fremont with one of his own. It took effect January 1, 1863. From that point on the North began to rally from its defeatist desuetude, having unleashed its "sable arm," the blacks, who fought "like tigers" for the freedom of their people, and to save the Union from dissolution, both of which they achieved in their : 'FREEDOM WAR.'