Extemporaneous musings, occasionally poetic, about life in its richly varied dimensions, especially as relates to history, theology, law, literature, science, by one who is an attorney, ordained minister, historian, writer, and African American.
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Executive Order Actions of the Past
http://ivn.us/2014/01/30/thomas-jefferson-great-executive-overreach/
The present Executive Order debate and suit threat is a sham. Note that the Louisiana Purchase, by Thomas Jefferson; the Emancipation Proclamation, by Abraham Lincoln; and the Desegregation of the Armed Forces, by Harry Truman--to name a few--were all by Executive Orders.
JULY 4, 1776 VERSUS APRIL 9, 1865
Next week is the 4th of July.
On that date in 1776, a group of wealthy Southern slave-owners, and their Northern business partners, announced to Great Britain, that they were severing their political and economic ties with it, due to certain policies and practices, the most salient being the abolition of slavery in the British colonies, following the suppression of the African slave trade; even though that reason was not mentioned in the final draft.
After the Revolutionary War, the Constitution embedded slavery as an organic part of the whole in 1789, when slaves in the South were counted 3/5s of a man--a quota--for purposes of Congressional representation.
In 1852, Frederick Douglass asked rhetorically "What is the Fourth of July to the Slave?" in an epic speech.
In 1857, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Dred Scott v. Sanford, that no blacks whether slave or free, could be citizens of the United States, and that the black man had no rights that the white man was bound to respect!
On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued an Executive Order emancipating slaves in the states, or parts thereof, then in rebellion with the United States, and most importantly, his action enabled the enlistment of able-bodied freedmen into the armed forces of the United States, out of military necessity.
The ensuing, now-"Freedom War," as the slaves named it, refuted that racist judicial rubric with artillery shells, rifle fire and bayonet thrusts that commanded "respect" for black people and for their black troops, 200,000 strong, whose gallantry secured their own freedom and saved the Union from dissolution!
So, while the 4th of July is a white holiday, the black Independence Day is April 9, 1865, when Lee surrendered to Grant, ending the slavery, and the Civil War! We celebrate that date as the "African American Passover," here in western Missouri, by praising God for deliverance.
YOUR CHARACTER AND MINE
YOUR CHARACTER AND MINE
Both Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Albert Einstein made compelling observations about character.
That the premiere theologian and the premiere scientist, in our time, would concur on the centrality of character is more than a wee bit significant!
Dr. King said "I look to the day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
Dr. Einstein said that "It is the moral qualities of its leading personalities that are perhaps of even greater significance for a generation and for the course of history than purely intellectual accomplishments. Even these latter are, to a far greater degree than is commonly credited, dependent on the nature of character."
So, what is character? Character is that imprint of aggregate traits and features of a person, thing, or group which uniquely marks or distinguishes each or them particularly.
Character is one's essence or one's soul; where flesh meets spirit, and where culture meets context, in a given time and place; it is who we are bereft of buffers, masks, aliases.
The ancient injunction "Man, know thyself!", is addressed to the soul or to the character of that person.
I discovered my character during "sensitivity sessions" in high school, which were held at a remote lodge deep in the Missouri woods along with certain classmates, in 1968. These sessions typically lasted 8-12 hours or longer, were moderated; and were intensely introspective. At the end of it, through dynamic group conversations and self-examination among ourselves, one was left raw.
Often tears would flow, but at the end, you were cleansed enough to understand yourself clearly, and, as importantly, to understand all others; and they to understand you, in a sort of a cosmic human two-way mirror.
I personally benefited greatly from this process, as did others privy to this spiritually liberating process.
Character defines and reminds us of our identity, our affinity, and our purpose on this planet through love: love of self; love of others; love of life; love of nature; and love of God.
Do you know who you are deep down, and why you are here at this place and time? Seek your character, your soul, your foundation stone, your essential essence: to feel, to know, to understand the unique answers to questions of the who and why of you!
Saturday, June 28, 2014
ORIGIN OF THE ALPHABET
DO YOU FEEL ME? CAN YOU FEEL ME?
DO YOU FEEL ME? CAN YOU FEEL ME?
Thursday, November 10, 2011
BY Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman
“Feeling” is an important sense. All senses are important, as far as that goes.
But, a new idiomatic nuance has entered into our lexicon, courtesy of young African American rappers, and entertainers. They poignantly, and habitually, ask their throbbing, interactive audiences, “Do you feel me?” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1in5wAVOyIk
Note: no longer is the inquiry merely “Do you hear me?” Or, “Can I get a witness?” It is now: “Do you feel me?” Otherwise put, they are asking “Are you communing with me? “Vibing” with me? “Down with me?” In short, “Are we in spiritual synchronization?”
Sometimes, they also ask: “Can you feel me?” http://www.jango.com/music/Will+Smith?l=0
Either way you say it, “Can you feel me” or “Do you feel me”, the sense of hearing, has coalesced with and melded into another sense feeling. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_You_Feel_Me . At a concert, or on a video “sight,” a third sense, sometimes completes the triad, further enhancing the thrill!
This phenomenon, when two senses blend together, is called “adventitious synesthesia” by scientists.
“Adventitious” means “accidental” or anything that is not inherently part of something else, but is something external to it. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/adventitious
“Synesthesia” is from the ancient Greek σύν (syn), "together," and αἴσθησις (aisthēsis), "sensation. It is a neurologically based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.[1][2][3][4] People who report such experiences are known as synesthetes.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia
“While cross-sensory metaphors (e.g., "loud shirt," "bitter wind" or "prickly laugh") are sometimes described as "synesthetic", true neurological synesthesia is involuntary. It is estimated that synesthesia could possibly be as prevalent as 1 in 23 persons across its range of variants.[17] Synesthesia runs strongly in families, but the precise mode of inheritance has yet to be ascertained. Synesthesia is also sometimes reported by individuals under the influence of psychedelic drugs, after a stroke, during a temporal lobe epilepsy seizure, or as a result of blindness or deafness. Synesthesia that arises from such non-genetic events is referred to as "adventitious synesthesia" to distinguish it from the more common congenital forms of synesthesia.”
Blended sensory perceptions appears to be far more common than simply 1 in 23 persons, when music is involved. In addition to synesthesia, music can also evokes a mood or a memory. Scientists have attempted to understand “why” this occurs“ often with mixed or inconclusive results. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-does-music-make-us-fe
http://musicog.ohio-state.edu/Huron/Talks/Emotion.2001/abstract.html
One thing is certain, whatever its “why’s” may be, music definitely does impact the cognitive and motor systems of the brain, enabling prediction, as well as the limbic system of the brain, enabling emotion. http://www.worldhealth.net/news/music-evokes-emotion/
Dopamine is actually released in the brain yielding a sensation of pleasure, when listening to music, whence, undoubtedly, the youthful exclamation: “that music was dope!”
“Ever had goosebumps or felt euphoric chills when listening to a piece of music? If so, your brain is reacting to the music in the same way as it would to some delicious food or a psychoactive drug such as cocaine, according to scientists.
“The experience of pleasure is mediated in all these situations by the release of the brain's reward chemical, dopamine, according to results of experiments carried out by a team led by Valorie Salimpoor of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, which are published today in Nature Neuroscience.
“Music seems to tap into the circuitry in the brain that has evolved to drive human motivation – any time we do something our brains want us to do again, dopamine is released into these circuits. "Now we're showing that this ancient reward system that's involved in biologically adaptive behaviours is being tapped into by a cognitive reward," said Salimpoor.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/jan/09/why-we-love-music-research
Hence, these young African American rappers, and entertainers, whom we older types may have too readily “dissed,”—another of their terms--may be actually driving favorable “biologically adaptive behaviors,” in spite of themselves in their music!”
Such biologically adaptive behaviors are being rewarded and stimulated by dopamine, world-wide, among their peers, and among their peers’ parents, by little understood neurological mechanisms rooted in the brain; as well as by little understood cardiovascular mechanisms, I suspect, rooted in the human heart, and within their powerful, equally mysterious, synesthesia..
So, as opposed to opprobrium and condemnation, these young people, instead, warrant our love and our praise for moving humanity forward in their own wonderfully dyspeptic way!
Can you feel me? Do you feel me? OK, then, Amen!
Friday, June 27, 2014
FIBONACCI OF PISA AND HINDU-ARABIC NUMERALS
"'The nine Indian figures are: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. With these nine figures, and with the sign 0.... any number may be written, as is demonstrated below.--Leonardo Fibonacci (CA. 1170s-1240s)'
"With the above words, Leonardo of Pisa ...also known as Leonardo Fibonacci, began his first and best-known book, "Liber abaci" (Book of the abacus), published in 1202. At the time the book appeared, only a few privileged European intellectuals who cared to study the translations of the works of al-Khwarizmi and Abu Kamil knew the Hindu-Arabic numerals we use today. Fibonacci, who for a while joined his father, a customs and trading official, in Bugia (in present-day Algeria), and later traveled to other Mediterranean countries (including Greece, Egypt, and Syria), had the opportunity to study and compare different numerical systems and methods for arithmetical operations. Upon concluding that the Hindu-Arabic numerals, which included the place-value principle, were far superior to all other methods, he devoted the first seven chapters of his book to explanations of Hindu-Arabic notation and its use in practical applications.
"In Bugia (now called Bejaia), in Algeria, Fibonacci became acquainted with the art of the nine Indian figures, probably with, in his words, the "excellent instruction" of an Arab teacher....
"In many cases, Fibonacci gave more than one version of the problem, and he demonstrated an astonishing versatility in the choice of several methods of solution. In addition, his algebra was often theoretical, explaining in words the desired solution rather than solving explicit equations, as we do today. Here is a nice example of one of the problems that appear in "Liber abaci"...:
"A man whose end was approaching summoned his sons and said: 'Divide my money as I shall prescribe.' To the eldest son, he said, 'You are to have 1 bezant [a gold coin first struck in Byzantium] and a seventh of what is left.' To his second son he said, 'Take 2 bezants and a seventh of what remains.' To the third son, 'You are to take 3 bezants and a seventh of what is left.' Thus he gave each son 1 bezant more than the previous son and a seventh of what remained, and to the last son all that was left. After following their father's instructions with care, the sons found that they had shared their inheritance equally. How many sons were there and how large was the estate?
"For the interested reader, I present both the algebraic (modern) solution and Fibonacci's rhetorical solution to this problem in Appendix 6."
p.92-95, "Son of Good Nature," THE GOLDEN RATIO, by Mario Livio (Random House, Inc. NY: 2003)
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
COLORED CIVIL WAR RE-ENACTORS
Colored troop re-enactors are popping up all over the country as Civil War consciousness finally kicks in among our people, most of whom remain, pitiably, ashamed of slavery out of: historical ignorance, popular media brainwashing, and their own family culture!
John Russell and U. S. Colored Cavalry Troopers (Re-enactors) at Camp Nelson, Kentucky - 2008
Monday, June 23, 2014
MAX PLANCK, EINSTEIN'S TRIBUTE
IDEAS AND OPINIONS, “Max Planck in Memorial, 1948” by Albert Einstein (Three Rivers Press, NY: 1954, 1982), p.78-79:
“[T]he standard of our ideal search for truth is being held aloft undimmed. This ideal, a bond forever uniting scientists of all times and in all places, was embodied with rare completeness in Max Planck.
“Even the Greeks had already conceived the atomistic nature of matter and the concept was raised to a high degree of probability by the scientists of the nineteenth century. But it was Planck’s law of radiation that yielded the first exact determination—independent of other assumptions—of the absolute magnitude of atoms. More than that, he showed convincingly that in addition to the atomistic structure of matter there is a kind of atomistic structure of energy governed by the universal constant ‘h’, which was introduced by Planck.
“This discovery became the basis of all twentieth-century research in physics and has almost entirely conditioned its development ever since. Without this discovery it would not have been possible to establish a workable theory of molecules and atoms and the energy processes that govern their transformations. Moreover, it has shattered the whole framework of classical mechanics and electrodynamics and set science a fresh task: that of finding a new conceptual basis for all physics. Despite remarkable partial gains, the problem is still far from a satisfactory solution.”
Sunday, June 22, 2014
CHRISTIANA, PENNSYLVANIA FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT 'RIOT'' TRIALS 1851
TIMAEUS....EXCERPT
PLATO: COMPLETE WORKS, “TIMAEUS,” edited by John M. Cooper (Hackett Pub., Indianapolis, IN: 1995), 1260
“Now as for motion and rest, unless there is agreement on the manner and the conditions in which these two come to be, we will have many obstacles to face in our subsequent course of reasoning. Although we have already said something about them, we need to say this as well: there will be no motion in a state of uniformity. For it is difficult, or rather impossible, for something to be moved without something to set it in motion, or something to set a thing in motion without something to be moved by it. When either is absent, there is no motion, but [when they are present] it is quite impossible for them to be uniform. And so let us always presume that rest is found in a state of uniformity and to attribute motion to a state of non-uniformity.”
FERVOR AND FAVOR
Saturday, June 21, 2014
OF 'SIN'
OF SIN
Psalm 51:5
"5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me."
If mankind was conceived in sin, that is the same thing as being born in human skin. That means that no one in this life, escapes either: skin or sin.
Yet, our Christian faith declares that sin is degrading and abasing of man; while, godliness, sin's opposite, glorifies, exalts man. This traditional creed also asserts that certain thoughts, words or deeds are sinful.
The prevailing gloss represents that mankind "fell," because of Adam's "fall" in the Garden of Eden, after eating fruit, from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, with his wife, Eve. This, God had forbidden.
Yet, Psalm 51:5 says man was both conceived and born in sin, every man. This implies that no conduct of man or of woman was necessary to bring on sin; that sin is inherent in man and in woman, just by being alive, innate. That verse absolves Adam and Eve.
What an oxymoron, or compressed paradox, this reverberating irony is, that mankind's progenitors are absolved, vindicated, by Psalm 51:5; yet, their lineal descendants are condemned by the very same verse!
Simply put, the so-called "fall" of man is oxymoronic, since man was 'born in sin,' under one traditional, orthodox view. But, under another, equally traditional orthodox view, man's disobedience to God is the sole cause of sin. So, which is it? Both, either, or none?
Whatever its definition among men, it matters not to God, who as Jesus says, "makes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and causes it to rain on the just and the unjust." Matt. 5:45
Romans 8:39 assures us that nothing shall separate us from the love of God; neither height nor depth; indeed, nothing in all of creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.
That particularly includes sin!
JOHN BERRY MEACHUM, JAMES MILTON TURNER, AND ME.
John Berry Meachum, founding pastor of the 500+ member, African Baptist Church in St. Louis, purchased black slaves who were non-family members in the 1840s and 1850s. Meachum put them to work in his barrel-making factory where they could acquire skills and earn money to buy their freedom from him. He also built a school upon his steamship, which he moored in the middle of the federally-owned Mississippi River for black children to be educated. One of his skiffs ferried these students to and from school each day, education being illegal in Missouri after an 1847 statute was passed! Among his students was James Milton Turner, the first U.S. Ambassador to Haiti; the founder of black public schools in Missouri after the Civil War. One such school in Meachum Park, Missouri, was named in his honor, "J. Milton Turner Elementary School"; I attended this school, as a child through the 6th grade. Thus, I am a spiritual heir to the legacies of John Berry Meachum and James Milton Turner, whose bold and righteous efforts now empower me.
Did You Know? Free Blacks Owned Family Members as Slaves to Protect Them | Black Like Moi
LINCOLN HIGH 1977
LINCOLN HIGH 1977
In 1977, upon admission to the Missouri Bar, one of my first actions, outside of my job as a regional attorney at the U. S. Department of Labor, was to become a "Volunteer in Education" in the Kansas City Missouri Public Schools.
I chose Lincoln High School, because of its distinguished history as Kansas City's first black high school, and because it was still over 90% black, when I went there, and was "at risk" according to some dubious nabobs.
I went one day per week for one hour, in one class, that of Mrs. Katherine Smith, a delightful lady, who was thrilled to have me in her room inspiring her students.
While I was theoretically supposed to be talking about juvenile justice issues, I knew in my heart what they craved.
That was love, hope, black historical information, and relevant economic, and political knowledge; plus, information on how I became a lawyer, and how they might pursue their own dreams.
I told those young people, who were nearly my peers, age-wise, that they needed to acquire some "utilizable skills," of whatever kind they chose and liked. Then to become the best at those utilizable skills on earth. Be the best. There is always room for the best!
Along the way, I brought in stockbrokers, commodities dealers, real estate brokers, insurance brokers, and others to expose them to the wide assortment of opportunities available to them. And what it took to become one. The kids ate it up!
There was a three-way lovefest between me and the kids and Mrs. Smith. It was palpable, tangible, real. They felt it. I felt it. We felt it.
Over the years, I have heard from several of those students, since leaving. One young lady joined me later in the U.S.Attorney's Office, where I was, then, an Assistant; she was a secretary and a great one. One young man was hired by an international conglomerate and was involved with French railroads and shipping; and another one became a Senior Vice President for a nationally known securities investment firm. These latter two also sent me some business!
Lastly, one young man who had called out to me from inside of a gas mask filled with marijuana smoke at a concert, "Mr. Coleman! Mr. Coleman!" He became the undisclosed object of a special lecture on drugs. That young man, I am told, later acquired a degree in chemistry from a Missouri university, appropriately!
This anecdote was activated by my reading today that "the diffusion of knowledge and skills" is the antidote for class based economic inequality in Piketty's best seller "Capital in the Twenty-First Century."
That brought to mind my 1977 experience at Lincoln, just shared, where I had already done just that! Praise God!
Friday, June 20, 2014
Know-know's
You can never know what you do not know, until you know enough to know what you do not know.
burning coals
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
THE PLAN OF ATTACK
THE PLAN OF ATTACK
It is becoming clearer.
Attack the father to get him out of the house, due to unemployment.
Attack the mother to get her off of public assistance, due to violations.
Attack public education to get their kids out of schools, due to testing.
Then, attack the black church, the final barrier between them and the abyss of evil, depraved, despond, due to homosexuality and scandals.
Then, vilify "them" all publicly as ne'er do wells, criminals, hustlers, loafers, pimps, welfare queens, mentally impaired miscreants, needing affirmative action, and rejects in media and in public policy debates.
That will dispose of a significant plurality of the most vulnerable, low-lying fruit; turn these against each other through materialist desires, ghetto dwelling, ignorance, gang warfare, alcohol, poverty,and drugs.
Then, imprison them en masse, making them work for slave wages, while deducting their costly 'upkeep' and court fees from their meager earnings to prevent any kind of capital accumulation, as was done to their forebears, colored peons and rural colored sharecroppers.
The cumulative effect of these deprivations and degradations was supposed to have frustrated their conceptions of themselves, to deflate their personal and racial ambitions, to divert their momentum for economic reparations and legal justice; thereby to justify their continued repression, their vile, invisible, pragmatically political, monetary masters had vainly hoped!
But God......
The foregoing diatribe was deduced, indeed intuited, after reading the following "results" of the most comprehensive study of American and Western European capital ever undertaken. It reads:
"The history of the distribution of wealth has always been deeply political, and it cannot be reduced to purely economic mechanisms. In particular, the reduction in inequality that took place in most developed countries between 1910 and 1950 was above all a consequence of war and of policies adopted to cope with the shocks of war. Similarly, the resurgence of inequality after 1980 is due largely to political shifts of the past several decades especially in regard to taxation and finance. The history of inequality is shaped by the way economic, social, and political actors view what is just and what is not, as well as by the relative power of those actors and the collective choices that result. It is the joint product of all relevant actors combined."
P. 20, "The Major Results of the Study," CAPITAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY by Thomas Piketty (Belknap: 2014)
During the 1980s, Ronald Reagan and Republicans rose up, repressively, remember? Clinton followed and maintained the same.
So, here we are in 2014!
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
BRAZILIAN 'BLACKNESS'? NOT!
In the 1950s and 1960s, Brazil was touted by black media as being more 'open' and racially progressive than the United States; clearly this was a colored folks' canard, fable and lie. Until black Brazilians can come to grips with their blackness, the basis of their century's of enslavement, they shall lack power, identity, and respect in proportion to their population.
Black Identity and Racism Collide in Brazil
www.theroot.com
Monday, June 16, 2014
BEGIN WHERE YOU END
Where you end is where you begin, in reading, writing, speaking, walking, building. Where you end is where you begin. The Civil Rights Movement ended in 1968, with the murder of the now- martyr, Martin Luther King, Jr., when the focus was on securing economic rights, and eliminating the poverty, of Negroes, of poor whites and of Chicanos in 1968. Almost 50 years later, the same economic issues remain unresolved, as attention focused on politics, social integration, and allied issues not connected to reparations or restorative economics, known as 'restitution' in legal terms.
This is where the movement must now predominantly focus, and must be the metric by which all else is measured. Begin again at the spool's end.
Saturday, June 14, 2014
RED SEA CROSSING AT GULF OF AQABA
The Hebrew children did not enter the promised land until after wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. They needed a winnowing process, a decompression period, just like deep-sea divers and astronauts must undergo when returning to Earth. Our own people decompressed and were winnowed, for 40 years after the apotheosis of Dr. M.L. King, 1968-2008. Now it is time to "take the land," our good American land, as the Hebrew children did, as the Spirit moves.
The Exodus Route: 15 Stops between Kadesh Barnea to Jordan
www.bible.ca
A. They left Mt. Sinai and passed by Ezion Geber, then Mt. Seir, then came to Kadesh Barnea. This is almost a straight line of travel north. From this we know that Mt. Seir is south of Kadesh:
This Bible scholar contends that the Gulf of Aqaba was the "Red Sea" point that God divided, enabling the Hebrew Children to escape Pharaoh's army. Egypt proper then included the Sinai Peninsula, unlike today, the Sinai Peninsula is not deemed to be in Africa; and where maps cut Egypt off at the Suez Canal, which did not then exist; was built by the British over 2,000 years later.
ingratitude
INGRATITUDE'S COMEUPPANCE
Ingratitude is a pretentious parasite.
Ingratitude is a vice that abuses, consumes, and misuses others': bodies, time, air, food, drink, shelter, clothing, aid, money, love, sacrifice, compassion, labor, discoveries, gifts, history, creations, lands, inventions, values, pain, loss, worry, sickness, even death , and burial, while giving nothing in return; often without even so much a simple "thank you!"
Ingratitude is greedy, scornful, vain, and imperiously contemptuous, deigning all others its lowly servants.
Such traits are embedded in baleful Ingratitude's DNA, RNA and reason for being, all the while hidden under its fake smile, behind opportunistic bonds of kin, race, nationality, creed, community, friendship, or fraternity.
Look around! Ingratitude is preening everywhere: talking but not doing; taking but not giving; sneering but not saluting; laughing but not loving; reaping but not sowing; gathering, thriving off of the thrill of its deceit.
One-way only is is woeful narrative. From others to it, but nothing of substance from it to them, its tale!
Ingratitude is more than snooty attitude, and lack of grace. it is also rapacious as an eagle, wily as a weasel in practice, slippery and slimy, conniving and beguiling.
Despite all of this, though, it is yet much too vain to perceive that its peculation, its fraud has finally been peeped by its ersatz prey; weighed, measured, found wanting, uncovered.
Restitution, justice, truth, & balance are ensnaring Ingratitude in its own spoils; reproving it with own profits: disgorged and restored to its victims.
We are witnesses to and enablers of this human course correction! Amen!
Let us make sure that you, me, us, and we, are not also infected by its invidious germ!
IMHOTEP THE AFRICAN
"A few years ago, ex-Minister of Egyptian Antiquities Zahi Hawass made an extraordinary statement. He claimed, in all seriousness, that 'Egyptians are not Africans.' This bizarre proclamation was not made because Hawass failed to consult a world map, but because he regarded 'African' as being synonymous with 'black'. In our book BLACK GENESIS, we not only showed that the fount of the pharaonic civilization was a sub-Saharan people, but also that they were indeed black Africans who had their roots in central Africa. We now intend to show that Imhotep himself may well have come from this culture. And although the smoking-gun evidence can only be found if and when Imhotep's tomb and mummy turn up so his DNA can be examined, nonetheless the circumstantial evidence that we present in the final chapter is strongly in favor of this possibility."
P.181, "Black-skinned Ancestors," IMHOTEP THE AFRICAN: ARCHITECT OF THE COSMOS, by Robert Bauval and Thomas Brophy, Ph.D. (2013)
truth-seekers are not particular
Those that seek and love the truth are not usually particular about its provenance, only its divine and sublime essence.
Friday, June 13, 2014
'ORIGINAL INTENT' IS RACIST AND FASCIST
'Original intent' is racist and fascist
All things change, mutate, or evolve in time, whether material or intellectual, law and its enabling legal principles being no exception to this general rule.
Why then some judges would rely upon the 'original intent' of the slaveholding framers of the US Constitution, and their privies, instead of recognizing change, is done to mask and dissemble their racist or fascist malevolence behind statutory construction rubric.
Such deceitful practices, not only negate those principles of change, mutation, and evolution governing all things, but they also willfully ignore the ensuing historical occurrences--like the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement--and the later Constitutional Amendments and statutes that nullified such slaveholders' 'original intent.'
THE DAILY STRUGGLE FOR RENASCENT STEM CELLS
THE DAILY STRUGGLE FOR RENASCENT STEM CELLS
When you magnify malignancies and feature them continuously to the exclusion of healthy tissue, the implication is clearly that malignant whatever's predominate over normal.
This is a form of brainwashing, used frequently in all forms of popular media when depicting blacks. That a much larger number of blacks triumph over incredible institutional and cultural disadvantages in order to get ahead in this country is rarely positively portrayed. Meanwhile, the black defects--the killers, muggers, pimps, whores, and thieves--lead the newspaper headlines, nightly news, all television programming and many, funded psychological or sociological studies, designed to stigmatize the entire black race negatively.
With whites, however, it is the exact opposite. The white prima donnas, and achievers are put on public display, in all media for admiration and for emulation. Meanwhile, their defective malignants are hidden from view, or such persons are portrayed as sick individuals having no part in their superior white race race.
These juxtaposed portrayals are not accidental nor coincidental. Rather, they are tacitly incidental to the meme, the prevailing paradigm, of white supremacy fashioned during slavery to rationalize black economic chattel slavery; which was then retained after the Civil War, during "Reconstruction," to facilitate the reconciliation of the Northern white man with the Southern white man respecting the country's cultural, political and economic future. That future acknowledged that the same "rights, privileges and immunities" enjoyed by whites were to be equally invested in blacks, too, on paper--in law. Yet, such incidents of citizenship were denied to blacks in practice, in every day life, brutally, despotically.
In year 2014, we--true Americans--are making a strenuous effort to slough off this deadly and deceitful meme, this depraved paradigm, this malingering malignancy of white supremacist despond, and to replace them with the underlying renascent doctrinal stem cells of law, custom, religion, commerce, and politics.
To that end, we struggle each day.
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
SATAN IS BUSY
"SATAN IS BUSY"
More than a few disputes, even fights, have been generated around someone's perception of another's thoughts, i.e., she thinks she's cute;" or as in "he thinks he's all of that."
Knowing one's own thoughts is difficult enough, by itself, to have to concern one's self with another person's thinking!
"7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee."
Proverbs 23:7
None but God knows a person's thoughts, as it states in Jeremiah 17:9, " the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure; who can know it?"
Guile and deceit in the heart comes out of the mouth to the ear, or from paper to the eye, or their equivalents. So, do not accept uncritically what is said by anyone, without first inquiring into its merits for yourself!
Above all, see what they, those bold speakers and writers, do and have done historically on that subject!
"Satan is busy," the old folks used to say!
Would that that those who think that they are "righteous" were as busy!
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
THE INNOCENTS ABROAD, EXCERPT...
"We hired a small sail boat and a guide and made an excursion to one of the small islands in the harbor to visit the Castle D'If. The ancient fortress had a melancholy history. It has been used as a prison for political offenders for two or three hundred years, and its dungeon walls are scarred with the rudely carved names of many and many a captive who fretted his life away here, and left no record of himself but these sad epitaphs wrought with his own hands...
"The walls of these dungeons are as thick as some bed-chambers at home are wide--fifteen feet. We saw the damp, dismal cells in which two of Dumas' heroes passed their confinement--heroes of "Monte Cristo." It was here that the brave Abbé wrote a book with his own blood; with a pen made of a piece of iron hoop; and by the light of a lamp made out of shreds of cloth soaked in grease obtained from his food; and then dug through the thick walls with a trifling instrument which he wrought himself out of a stray piece of iron or table cutlery, and freed Dantes from his chains. It was a pity that so many weeks of dreary labor should come to naught at last."
P.82-84, THE INNOCENTS ABROAD, by Mark Twain (Library of America, NY: 1984)
MAMA AND BABY GRADUATE
Monday, June 9, 2014
GLORY IN BEING
GLORY IN BEING
In the background of of human consciousness flows an unobtrusive energy stream that produces both consciousness, and, life itself, even as it maintains equilibrium and stasis.
We sense it, palpably, and search for it zealously. Yet, just beyond our grasp it recedes, as though by magic. Now, appearing regular, reliable, predictable, it then reverses course, becoming chaotic even whimsical.
What is this? Men have variously named it. Cosmos, God, Energy, Infinity, Singularity, Big Bang, Theory of Everything, Quanta, etc.
We don't know. It also now appears that from/on this plane of being we may never know in this niche of flesh.
To be may just have to satisfy what we cannot know. And do not know, knowledge being but a foretaste of glory divine . Hence, glory in being!
Rejoice in your self with love and joy.
Friday, June 6, 2014
The Descent of Man, Excerpts...
The Descent of Man, by Charles Darwin (Penguin Classics: 1879, 2004)
“But the inheritance of property by itself is very far from evil; for without accumulation of capital the arts could not progress; and it is chiefly through their power that the civilized races have extended, and are now everywhere extending their range, so as to take the place of the lower races. Nor does the moderate accumulation of wealth interfere with the process of selection. When a poor man becomes moderately rich, his children enter trades or professions in which there is struggle enough, so that the able in body and mind succeed best. The presence of a body of well-instructed men, who have not to labor for their daily bread, is important to a degree which cannot be overestimated; as all high intellectual work is carried on by them, and on such work, material progress of all kinds depends, not to mention other and higher advantages. No doubt wealth when very great tends to convert men into useless drones, but their number is never large; and some elimination here occurs, for we daily see rich men, who happen to be fools or profligate, squandering away their wealth.”
Id. P.160
“Great lawgivers, the founders of beneficent religions, great philosophers and discoverers of science, aid the progress in a far higher degree in their works than by numerous progeny. In the case of corporeal structures, it is the selection of the slightly better-endowed and the elimination of the slightly less well-endowed individuals, and not the preservation of the strongly-marked and rare anomalies, that leads to the advancement of the species. So it will be with the intellectual faculties, since the somewhat abler men in each grade of society succeed rather better than the less able, and consequently increase in number, if not otherwise prevented.”
Id. P. 162
“The reckless, degraded, and often vicious members of society, tend to increase at a quicker rate than the provident and generally virtuous members. Or as Mr. Greg puts the case: ‘The careless, squalid, unaspiring Irishman multiplies like rabbits: the frugal, foreseeing, self-respecting, and ambitious Scot, stern in his morality, spiritual in his faith, sagacious and disciplined in his intelligence, passes his best years in struggle and in celibacy, marries late and leaves few behind him. Given a land originally peopled by a thousand Saxons and a thousand Celts—and in a dozen generations five-sixths of the population will be Celts, but five-sixths of the property, of the power, and of the intellect will belong to the one-sixth of the Saxons that remained. In the eternal ‘struggle for existence,’ it would be the inferior and less favored race that prevailed—and prevailed not by virtue of its good qualities but of its faults.’”
Id. P.164
“We must remember that progress is no invariable rule. It is very difficult to say why one civilized nation rises, becomes powerful and spreads more widely, than another; or why the same nation progresses more quickly at one time than another. We can only say that it depends on an increase in the actual number of the population, on the number of men endowed with high intellectual and moral faculties, as well as on their standard of excellence. Corporeal structures appear to have little influence, except so far as vigor of body leads to vigor of mind.
“It has been urged by several writers that as high intellectual powers are advantageous to a nation, the old Greeks, who stood some grades higher in intellect than any race that ever existed, ought, if the power of natural selection were real, to have risen still higher in the scale, increased in number, and stocked the whole of Europe. Here we have the tacit assumption, so often made with respect to corporeal structures, that there is some innate tendency towards continued development in mind and body. But development of all kinds depends on many concurrent favorable circumstances. Natural selection acts only tentatively. Individuals and races may have acquired certain indisputable advantages, and yet have perished from failing in other characters. The Greeks may have retrograded from want of coherence between the many small states, from the small size of their whole country, from the practice of slavery, or from extreme sensuality; for they did not succumb until ‘they were enervated and corrupt to the very core. The western nations of Europe, who now immeasurably surpass their former savage progenitors, and stand at the summit of civilization, owe little or none of their superiority to direct inheritance from the old Greeks, though they owe much to the written works of that wonderful people.”
Id. P.166-167
Thursday, June 5, 2014
DO NOT OUTRUN YOUR HELP
DO NOT OUTRUN YOUR HELP
Good running backs know better than to outrun their blockers. The risk of being tackled short of the goal line is too great; one ball carrier against eleven tacklers is poor odds.
The same applies in other life activities. Do not outrun your help! Do not go racing off wildly on your own and expect success, in any field.
The great football running back, OJ Simpson, ran behind his big lineman Reggie McKenzie into the football record book at Buffalo, New York.
He did not outrun his blocking until he was in the clear. Then, he was gone!
Jesus teaches the same lesson about the power of two or more on earth in Matthew 18:19-20: http://mobile.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+18:19-20.
Do not outrun your help, ever.
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
BLESSED UNDERGROUND ECONOMY
It would be odd to belong to a hunting lodge, and not have a gun; or to a fishing club without a boat; or, as Malcolm said, to claim that you're a diner and not even have a plate!
Similarly, to be without capital in the world's leading capitalist economy, seems equally odd! As odd as the paradoxes listed above, in fact.
There are many reasons for this lack. They need not be enumerated. The question is what to do about it?
How to gain, extract, divert, and employ capital from this world's #1 global capitalist economy is the number one issue confronting our people, who were formerly capital themselves, until they self-liberated themselves from slavery in 1865.
That same dynamic and creative self-help activism and heroism is needed again to complete the acquisition of freedom, which is, indisputably, monetary and economic in character.
Individualism won't do, although each individual can and must personally contribute to our capitalization by their own individual and group habits, and conduct.
What, then? My suggestion is for each to spend less, and to consume less, consistently; then, to save more regularly from the excess.
Thereafter, to seek opportunity to combine with other like-behaving persons of proven integrity to create new value in the global marketplace, by making, producing or modifying, something of value to be purchased by others.
This is the basic process of capital creation and accumulation. This need not be advertised nor broadcasted!
Too often, jackals, hyenas, snakes, and wolves, have devoured our substance, when we had no recourse at law or other means. So, "blessed quietness, holy quietness" goes the familiar hymn. That is the idea, here. It worked on the Underground Railroad. it can work on this underground economy. Just do what you do with your group, whether family or friends, and be done. Amen.
SO EASILY DISTRACTED AND DIVERTED
SO EASILY DISTRACTED AND DIVERTED ARE THEY WHO PROFESS...
"What could you not watch with Me one hour?"--verse 40.
36 Then Jesus came with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and said unto the disciples, “Sit ye here while I go and pray yonder.”
37 And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy.
38 Then He said unto them, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; tarry ye here and watch with Me.”
39 And He went a little farther, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.”
40 And He came unto the disciples and found them asleep, and said unto Peter, “What, could ye not watch with Me one hour?
41 Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Matt.26:36-41
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
TRUEST AMERICANS RISE UP!
TRUEST AMERICANS RISE UP!
"Do black people care about clean air and water" is an absurd question posed by a black-oriented, although white-owned, popular online blog.
Doesn't everyone care about such?
Shadowed beneath that absurd question, however, is the snarky commoditization of black people. This faux 'journalism, being "yellow" condescension, lumps, insults, us all.
It cleaves culturally and drives an embittered wedge into the unwary!
"Do white people care about clean air and water" should be asked, since they are the controllers of the means of production which primarily pollute!
However that, too, would be absurd.
These conveniently packaged racist constructs bombard us daily online, subliminally, forcing us to react continuously to proffered media absurdities in America's undeclared war of attrition, wherein blacks are always delineated as the "enemy."
When will it all ever end?
It will only end, when the truest Americans, blacks being among the truest, rise up and take control of the media, the government, religion, academia, charity , education, the military, and means of production!
And not a day sooner!
PICK THE ONE THAT MAKES MOST SENSE
Pick the one that makes most sense
Freedom is personal. Rights are too.
Greed gives to me, what falls to you.
Justice is definite. Not a fuzzy wish.
Inequity perturbs like dropping a dish
Love is where you find it; stay alert.
Fear is a fugitive, running from hurt.
Recompense is righteous, so get paid
Shedding fear helps the deal be made.
Freedom justice love all recompense
Greed inequity fear shred and mince.
Pick the one that makes most sense.
Pick the one that makes most sense.
Monday, June 2, 2014
SCIENTIFIC SURMISE AND SURPRISE
Sunday, June 1, 2014
COMPANY'S COMING
PROVE ME NOW HEREWITH
PROVE ME NOW HEREWITH
The preachments of the prophets and of the Bible would not sound so idealistic; so unrealistic and so unattainable in the "real world," if mankind actually knew that such had occurred among other men in history.
That thought struck me as I was reading the sermon, "The man who was a fool," by Martin Luther King, Jr., earlier today.
In it he used a text from Luke 12:20 to bewail certain of the rich who confuse the "means" of life with the "ends" of life. Being overwhelmed with wealth building and with vain wealth preservation, some die rich in wealth, but poor in love or charity.
Instead of using their surplus to enrich the "commonwealth" of mankind, they have, instead, sequestered massively superfluous wealth for themselves, which shall soon dissipate, with them, upon their deaths. King calls such ones, "fools."
I was wide-open and amenable to this thought, since I had just wondered, "when was the first war in recorded history?" It occurred in 2700 BC between Sumer and Elam, I quickly discovered from online research.
Well, since, certain historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists place mankind's origin in Africa anywhere from 250,00 years ago to 1.5 million years ago, war is just a baby in comparative terms. War is an infant, an "enfant terrible," to be sure, but still new.
This critical fact strongly implies that mankind has long cooperated with each other and has cohabited the globe, peacefully for eons, before war was ever known. If a state of "non-war" was possible once, indeed was extant based on current research, might not that much desired status recur again?
Can mankind replicate this praxis?
The same test goes for hunger, nakedness, and poverty. If history, archaeology and science can show and prove their absence in history prior to and before the past 5,000 years, like war, might not such empirical knowledge spur mankind to seek to replicate that prior happy status if it is also proven to be true?
I would think so. How about you?