APOCALYPTIC PARADIGM SHIFT IN WORLD RELIGIONS

APOCALYPTIC PARADIGM SHIFT! Suppose, just suppose, that instead of most world religions continuously framing mankind in the negative, calling it "fallen," or "sinful," or the like; suppose, just suppose instead, that mankind was more favorably framed by them in the positive, as beloved of God blessed, highly favored, esteemed? Would not that affirmative outlook; that polar change in prevailing, primordial human perspectives, itself, alter the human personality? Could not that more naturalist view of man enhance the possibilities of man? change the behavior of man? Imprinting is a dangerous thing. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he?" Being born in "sin," immured in "sin," indelibly linked to sin is an awful pigsty to be stuck in forever? Why would Almighty God even or ever bother to have created, much less to endow, mankind knowing that it was a loathsome miscreant? What if, just image if, instead of having been made in the image of evil, the devil or Satan--whatever that is--as is now popularly held, mankind was, instead, made in the very likeness and image of God! https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1%3A26-28 Also, imagine, just image that instead of God rejecting mankind as wickedly evil, God even lovingly accepts his own creation as good; indeed, not just good, "very good!" https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1%3A31&version=KJV The school to prison pipeline is popularly decried, by many blacks in the United States of America as an abomination. Rightly so! It is wrong to prepare our children--any child-- for prisons, the penitentiary. Is it not just as wrong to prepare children from the cradle for hell? To smother its God-given aspirations, hopes, and dreams, under a veil ? I think so. I say so! An apocalyptic paradigm shift in our global view of mankind is due from the world's major religions! That revised view must respect man and woman, as marvelous creations of their God!

ROPE AND ROPER

ROPER AND ROPE Before your telling someone, who is largely unknown to you, that you intend to "rope them into" your peculiar activity or pastime, it may be well to reflect that a rope has two ends; and that the would-be roper may turn out to be the roped!

IS OUR PRESENCE CONTRIBUTORY?

Is Our Presence Contributory? Watching sports newscasters on television speculate about our World Champion Kansas City Royals' prospects of repeating their spectacular 2015 feat, this year in 2016, I also somehow wondered whether, and to what extent, the presence or absence of Royals' fans was quantifiably contributory to their chances of future winning? All athletes thank and appreciate their fans, publicly, after victory. Is this mere pro forma courtesy, or is there really something more to it? If so, pulling back from the Royals, a much larger question is whether human presence on this planet is simply pro forma or may be as substantively contributory as well? Such a question stretches, and exercises the mind's elasticity, to be sure, it would seem, since such exercises surely stimulate mental growth, promoting its malleability! 

a not-so- sudden impulse

NOT SO SUDDEN IMPULSE Suppose, just suppose, that instead of religions always framing man in the negative, as "fallen," man were framed in the positive? Would not that affirmative outlook; that polar change in prevailing, primordially human perspectives, itself, alter the human personality? Could it enhance the possibilities of man, change the behavior of man? Imprinting is a dangerous thing. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he? Being born in "sin," immured in sin, indelibly linked to sin is awful! What if , just image if, instead of being made in the image of the devil or Satan--whatever that is--man was instead made in the likeness and image of God ! https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1%3A26- Also, imagine, just image that instead of God rejecting mankind as wickedly evil, God lovingly accepts his own creation as good; indeed, not just good, "very good!" https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/… The school to prison pipeline is popularly decried, by many blacks. Rightly so! It is wrong to prepare children for prison, the penitentiary. Is it not just as wrong to prepare children from the cradle for hell?

Dressing in fine woven linen over 5,000 years ago were ancient Egyptian women

https://www.sciencenews.org/…/tailored-egyptian-dress-oldes… This story evokes the esteemed Dr. Flemmie Kittrell of the old Home Economics Department (now "School Of Social Ecology, or some such) who showed me the beautiful fabrics on display in her department during my visit to Howard in May 1969.

THURGOOD: SAD AND SOBERING

It is both sad and sobering to realize that Justice Thurgood Marshall never hired a Howard Law School alumnus, his alma mater, at the Supreme Court http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1998-12-10/news/9812210473_1_court-s-clerks-black-justice-rehnquist

SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN

SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN It is paradoxical to read in 2016 of the whelming controversy raging between black and white abolitionists' goals, aspirations and outlooks, as reflected in THE WORKS OF JAMES McCUNE SMITH : BLACK INTELLECTUAL AND ABOLITIONIST edited by John Stauffer (2007), p.114. The white abolitionists were represented, chiefly, by William Lloyd Garrison, who viewed the Constitution as a proslavery document, who favored nonviolent disunion, but not equal rights . The black abolitionists were chiefly represented by Frederick Douglass, who viewed the Constitution as an antislavery document , who endorsed violent means of abolition, "if necessary," who favored blacks' having equal rights. Garrison, who had been helped financially by colored Robert Purvis of Philadelphia published his views through the "National Antislavery Standard," and others. Douglass, who received help from Dr. James McCune Smith of New York, and others, published his views in "Frederick Douglass' Paper," and others. It turns out historically that the Constitution was indeed a proslavery document as found by the U.S. Supreme Court, in "Dred Scott," in 1857, and as reified by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, 1865-1870. Compounding this paradox, there was "disunion," otherwise known as "secession" not by white abolitionist in the North, but by the slaveholders' states in the South. Moreover black equal rights were tenuous, at best, during too-brief Reconstruction then abrogated! So events split their differences! Right now we are somewhere in between .

MAMANOMICS

"Mamanomics" Mama taught me sharing, caring, familial stewardship, as a child. When I was a teenager in 1968, being their eldest of their 8 children living at home , she said: "If you should someday only have one piece of bread, cut it into 1/8s, and share it with your brothers and sisters . Do not eat it all by yourself. Then, they may do the same thing for you, in turn from your example." Since then, I have tried to apply. this enduring "family" principle with my "brothers and sisters" wherever they may be, and whoever they are. I call this "mamanomics," a blend of mother's wit, love, and economics!

ETHIOPIA OR CUSH IN GENESIS

ETHIOPIA OR CUSH IN GENESIS That Ethiopia or "Cush," is the first nation's name to appear in Genesis cannot have been happenstance nor adventitious by its authors. Nothing in the Bible has been, nor is happenstance nor adventitious. Some purpose is served. Some message is being sent "sub rosa." What "Ethiopia" might mean in situ, Genesis 2:13, I leave and commit to your peculiarly unique discretion. http://biblehub.com/genesis/2-13.htm It is enough that I point it out and say, "Amen." Seek and ye shall find.

COSMIC RHYTHMS ABOUND

COSMIC RHYTHMS ABOUND Repetition is a ritual, a routine. It is driven, riven by familiar rhythms. Sunrise. Sunset. Moon rise. Moon set. Tide in. Tide out. Life. Death. Religion engages rhythms. Music rocks them too. Farmers, hunters, fishermen, scientists, follow them, religiously. As all that exist must do. Breathing is based on rhythm. Pulse and blood pressure too. Growing grass, flying rain, cyclones and earthquakes too. To be in season is to be in rhythm. Microbes and galaxies obey their rhythms. Menstruation is rhythmic, lunar-linked, signaling fertility's proximity. Light's electromagnetism; whether visible or invisible: gamma or X-ray; whether infrared ultraviolet means nothing without rolling waves of rhythm. All is rhythm! Routine. Repetition. Metrical, symmetrical, asymmetrical. Synchronous. asynchronous. All glorious rhythm! Einstein's gravitational waves, long ago predicted, now just found; are really cosmic rhythms that abound.

WAVES THAT REIFY

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160224151443.htm These mathematics reify my cosmological expostulations

FACTS AND SHADED OPINIONS

Reading facts, like writing and speaking facts, clarifies, simplifies. That habit gives such a person the power to distinguish, fiction from facts, and to avoid needless disputes about alleged "facts," which are merely shaded opinions

USE YOUR OWN WORDS

USE YOUR OWN WORDS I have noticed in reading EUCLID's ELEMENTS, that he always restates the problem, or proposition, in his own words, before endeavoring to solve, prove it, to demonstrate it. There is a valuable lesson here. It is a lesson I had to learn in law school and afterwards. Articulate in your own language before commencing! If you cannot articulate it in your own words, whatever it my be, then you do not understand it, yourself. "If you can't explain it to a six year old, then you don't understand it yourself." Albert Einstein.

ANTONIN SCALIA AND ME

ANTONIN SCALIA AND MY SOLO LAW PRACTCE By Larry Delano Coleman, Esq. Monday, February 22, 2016 Deaths of influential men demand acknowledgement. Some by encomium, some by calumny. Antonin Scalia has received his fair share of both, since his peaceful passing on February 13, 2016, at age 79. I was directly influenced by the life of Antonin Scalia, although we never met, nor communicated. My solo, plaintiffs’-civil rights-oriented, law practice in Kansas City, Missouri from 1986-2010, fully felt him. As a former Assistant United States Attorney in Kansas City, Missouri, the second black appointee in the 100+ year history of that office, I was also a very proud, Howard University Law School graduate (1976), as was my predecessor. Naturally, I was steeped in Constitutional rubric and its statutory phylacteries. While I do not consider my double-alma mater, Howard U., to be among that class of “slower college” indiscreetly decried and sedulously lampooned by Justice Scalia during oral arguments in December 2015, in the case Fisher v. University of Texas, it is yet self-evident from his legal corpus, that he did! However, even then, he had conceded that the majority of “black scientists” come from these “slower colleges,” by which he surely meant historically black colleges and universities (“HBCU’S”). Hardly a criticism, that fact justifies their increased funding, continued existence in our national interest! Despite his inverse compliment to HBCU’s, that utterance, speaks mightily of the presence of malevolent prejudices reposing deeply within this man, who is quoted as saying: “There are those who contend that it does not benefit African Americans to get them into the University of Texas, where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well. One of the briefs pointed out that most of the black scientists in this country don't come from schools like the University of Texas. They come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they're being pushed ahead in classes that are too fast for them.” That was his most recent salvo. Soon after, he was found dead in Texas on an exclusive hunting ranch. I entered the private practice of law in August 1986. Scalia was appointed by Republican President, Ronald Reagan, in September 1986. He was the first Italian-descended justice. While some alleged legal critics have saluted his so-called “originalism” method of legal interpretation, I have found nothing original nor salutary about it. Rather it was repressive and recrudescent of that now-vilified, 19-century U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Roger Taney, who authored the infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857. Taney famously wrote that blacks were not “citizens,” within the meaning of the original Constitution. He also wrote they were not even “persons,” within its meaning, whether slave or free! Moreover, Taney also asserted that blacks “had no rights that a white man was bound to respect.” I felt that lack of respect in 1986, when I became an involuntary solo practitioner. “Involuntary,” means that the large, white, Kansas City firms claimed that I was then “overqualified,” after previously claiming that I was “under-qualified” only a few years earlier. “Involuntary” also means the few black firms claimed I would require too much money. Both lacked credence in my view, and a lack of respect. But, undaunted, I moved on anyway into solo practice, since my soul cried out! The Bible spoke truthfully when it said, “It is not good for man to be alone.” Especially was this true for one, like me, who, lacking practical experience in the day-to-day “hustle” that is—or was--the private practice, for me 1986-2010. Life was very different in solo practice. Previously, in prior jobs at the U.S. Justice Department (1979-1986); the Regional Solicitor’s Office of the U. S. Department of Labor (1976-1979); or even at the Federal Communications Commission, where I was a law clerk to Rev. Dr. Benjamin L. Hooks in 1975, I had no overhead, and steady, dependable income. Sinecure is greatly to be praised! Entering the headwinds, alone, amid the Reagan-led political and economic repression, that filtered all the way down to the county, and municipal levels, from the states, I experienced an array of punitive, plaintiff and plaintiff’s-lawyer averse, changes to state and Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, including Rule 11 and Rule 4(j)—later abrogated. Such rules wrought havoc on me and those like me. Fees of all kinds: annual attorney licensing’s fees, court filing fees for cases in state and federal court; along with increased costs of experts, depositions, supplies, taxes, and wages. From top-to-down and back-up, we took a beating! Moreover, the insurance companies changed their settlement protocols to make it more difficult to settle personal injury cases of all kinds, while unleashing negative ads about frivolous suits! Meanwhile, my client base, those that were constrained, after numerous prior rejections elsewhere, to seek out lawyers like me, would not listen. Instead, they remained utterly convinced, despite objective indicia to the contrary, that their particular case was that rare “pie-in-the sky phenomenon,” that one-in-a-million big one. They had read the papers. They watched television, listened to radio. They believed the “hype.” They just “knew” that they, too, could win the plaintiff’s litigation lottery big-time! Certain of my clients, then—thank God not all, nor most, over my 23 years of solo practice--believed that their fact-pattern would prevail; despite the rules, the judge, the law, the locale, and their own lack of money to continue to pay for the futile legal services that they demanded! These filed bar complaints. These hyper-demanding clients were that strong “east-west-turbulence” of the Reagan-Rehnquist-Scalia era. Beyond all of this was the law handed down from on high by Scalia and “conservatives.” Emblematic is Graham v. Conner, a 1989, decision which insulated police brutality from civil or criminal liability. Cited by the Justice Department, in its investigation of the Ferguson-Michael Brown murder, it prohibits any testimony from anyone except officers on the scene, citing cops’ life-imperiling split-second judgements. Good-bye, sir!

HOW AFRICA SHAPED THE CHRISTIAN MIND

"All Christians on the continent of Africa have a birthright that awaits discovery . But in subtle ways they seem to have been barred access to it as a result of longstanding preconceived notions and biases. So their heritage remains sadly unnoticed , even in Africa. "Not only Westerners but tragically many African scholars and church leaders also have ignored their earliest African Christian ancestors. Some have been so intent on condemning nineteenth century colonialist missionary history that they have hardly glimpsed their own momentous premodern patristic African intellectual heritage . Even black nationalist advocates who have exalted every other conceivable aspect of the African tradition seem to have consistently ignored this patristic gift lying at their feet. "Ordinary African Christian believers deserve to have a much more accessible way of understanding early African Christianity: its faith, courage, tenacity, and remarkable intellectual strength . That is why the story must be told, told now and told accurately." P.11, "Introduction," HOW AFRICA SHAPED THE CHRISTIAN MIND : REDISCOVERING THE SEEDBED OF WESTERN CHRISTIANITY by Thomas C. Oden (2007)

EMOTICONS EVERYWHERE

EMOTIONS EVERYWHERE "When you are humming, the devil won't know what you're saying." This black church truism sums up the benefit of my emoticons' use. The same can be said about any emoticon display . "Smiling faces sometimes they don't tell the truth." Emotions are like humming. Makes no difference either way, ultimately, what is precisely meant. Each observer may draw its own conclusion. This works well for me. It is quick; intuitive; benign; easy. Hieroglyphics are emoticons, being glyphs with extrinsic and/or intrinsic meaning, depending on one's deciphering acuity. So too are holy scriptures, geometric-algebraic equations, animal tracking signs in the wild or a cave dwellers' lost art.

SOFT THIINGS

SOFT THINGS Soft things overcome hard things by a gentle persistent pressure. Thus winds reduce mountains to rubble over time, just like water seeps through, under, and around that same range. Softness wins. A baby's mere presence reorders , even disorders its environment, making mothers coo and daddy's cry out loud for joy and happiness. Women's softness overcomes men's hardness, literally and figuratively, over and over again! Heat of soft sunshine evaporates rivers and desiccates grasslands, and melts the mightiest of glaciers. "A soft answer turns away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger." Proverbs 15:1. Soft things overcome hard things in time. For, Time is the softest of all.

EGYPTIAN SPHINX, "THE INNOCENTS ABROAD"

"We were glad to have seen that land which was the mother of civilization --which taught Greece her letters, and through Greece Rome, and through Rome the world, the land which could have humanized and civilized the hapless children of Israel, but allowed her to depart out of her borders little better than savages. We were glad to have seen the land which had an enlightened religion with future eternal rewards and punishment in it , while even Israel's religion contained no promise of a hereafter. We were glad to have seen the land which had glass three thousand years before England had it, and could paint upon it as none of us can paint now; that land which knew three thousand years ago, well nigh all medicine and surgery which science has 'discovered ' lately; which had all those curious surgical instruments which science had 'invented' recently ; which had in high excellence a thousand luxuries and necessities of an advanced civilization which we have gradually contrived and accumulated in modern times and claimed as things that were new under the sun ; that had paper untold centuries before we dreamt of it--and waterfalls before our women thought of them; that had a perfect system of common schools so long before we boasted of our achievements in that direction that it seems forever and forever ago; that so embalmed the dead that flesh was made almost immortal --which we cannot do; that built temples which mock at destroying time and smile grimly upon our lauded prodigies of architecture; that old land that knew all that we know now, perchance, and more; that walked in the broad highway of civilization in the gray dawn of creation, ages and ages before we were born; that left the impress of the exalted, cultivated Mind upon the eternal front of the Sphynx to confound all scoffers who, when all her other proofs have passed away, might seek to persuade the world that imperial Egypt, in the days of her high renown, groped in darkness." P.505-506, THE INNOCENTS ABROAD by Mark Twain (1869, 1984)

GRAVITATIONAL WAVES DEFY "BIG BANG"

Since the universe is based on light, i.e. the "Big Bang," given yesterday's announced proof by LIGO of the existence of gravitational waves, whose existence Albert Einstein theorized 100 years ago; and since gravitational waves defy light, being non-detectable by electromagnetic waves; then, such gravitational waves must also antedate light, and must be greater than light. If so, the gravitational waves would also discredit the prevailing theory of a "universe," which is presumed to have "begun" with a "Big Bang," i.e., light.http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2016/02/the-warped-side-of-the-universe-ligos-epic-detection-of-gravitational-waves-weeks-most-popular.html

JOHN HENRY AND "ART"

ART HAS MANY ASPECTS John Henry, the legendary "steel-driving man," is known to us in song and verse, for having worked himself to death in an effort to prove his physical superiority over that "newfangled" steel-driving machine that both threatened his economic security, as the top "steel-driver," as well as his sense of personal pride being impaired. Riding an Amtrak train through the hills of West Virginia, one may see scattered tributes to the muscular black man, "who laid down his hammer and died 'Lord! Lord!' Who laid down his hammer and he died." Song, poetry, all forms of art pickle, preserve, can, human endeavor with the same efficiency of salt and brine. Here, at least, art out-duels history. Even insignificant history is conserved, like that of "Frankie & Johnny," or "Shine & the Titanic"--which now is untrue; since a black man did drown, on that great ship, a Haitian engineer, his French wife and their two little children, in fact. The point is that art has a major role to play. It yet plays, a major role, whether as "Birth of a Nation," in film in 1915; or as Beyoncé in "Formation's" song-dance Super Bowl half-time extravaganza in 2016. Art plays a decisive role in human history, often determinative! "Art" infiltrates the soul. Ancient Egyptians, according to Plato, in THE LAWS, rigorously controlled artistic representations to assure their lasting fidelity to prior forms. In this regard, they succeeded for 10,000 years of glorious history. Whether by preserving, renewing, ennobling, inspiring, framing, teaching, or entertaining, art is central to man's life aesthetically. It is also crucial substantively to man. It is more than music, painting, dance, sculpture or poetry. Art is also the Bible, the Pyramids, the Star-Spangled Banner, the airplane, the missile, the gun, arrow & bomb. Art has many aspects, many of magnanimous import, which are intuitively beautiful, others not!

GRAHAM V. CONNER REPRISES "DRED SCOTT" AND THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT OF 1850

To say that certain persons lack a substantive right to life, as the U. S. Supreme Court has snidely done in Graham v. Conner, is to elevate the value of certain lives over others; an invidious & oppressive form of discrimination, which falls upon those at society's bottom: blacks! Graham v. Conner is the 1989 version of the 1857 Dred Scott decision and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, thanks to Rehnquist, Scalia et al. http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/490/386.html

epist

Would that epistolary were also epistemology

knowledge defers

Knowledge is ignorant of its user; is indifferent to its use!

LARRY AND LYLA! HAPPY 30TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY!

Happy 30th Anniversary, Lyla! I thank God for my loving wife, for such a time as this; The cares that we share, the love that we bear, enable us to subsist. The challenges come, one by one, to test our connubial bond; Yet each we meet, with blessed feet, enjoying 30 years of fun!

ROANOKE ISLAND, NC, JULY 4, 1865

"About sunrise there were 36 cannons fired, which sounded very much like war times, and appeared to rouse the very fish in the waters. The band played several airs, and everybody seemed to be alive. About 9 o'clock our regiment turned out, the soldiers marching to the music of the drum corps, and then halting in front of head quarters, where the old flag was flung to the breeze amid the cheers of the assembled multitude. "By this time about 3500 persons had collected. The regiment then stacked arms, and our most worthy and illustrious chaplain , Henry M. Turner, came along with his little wife by his side , who, by the way, appears to be a noble woman. Taking his position under a shade tree, he delivered one of the finest orations , I can safely say, that was ever heard on this island. Mr. Turner has always been the idol of our men, he goes with us everywhere in cold or heat, battle or sickness , he is always there, and every time, he has something new to say. I could not realize that I had ever heard him before. "In his address to the Fourth, he reviewed the history of the country from the discovery by Columbus, and spoke on slavery from its inaugurating until it was destroyed by the proclamation of our lamented President . He concluded by paying the nation's flag a glorious tribute ; he said the extremities of color , white and black in the country , had made it the world's theater , and that every despotic nation under heaven should yet dance to American music, and that Daniel's stone made it the regulation in 1776, and would make its last when the whole world would be one great republic, and that as soon as God would knock down the wall of prejudice between the whites and the blacks, sectional divisions would crumble into dust throughout the entire Globe. He handled his subject in a masterly manner, and the secessionists that heard him looked wild at its conclusion . Everybody then returned to their homes, and the rest of the day went off quietly." P.174-175, "Occupation Duty," A GRAND ARMY OF BLACK MEN edited by Edwin S. Redkey (1993) [This letter was written by Pvt. William Brown, 1st USCI, from Roanoke Island, North Carolina, on July 6, 1865, and was published in the AME's "Christian Recorder" newspaper on July 22, 1865]

NUMERACY FEARS // WHY IS THAT?

NUMERACY FEARS// WHY IS THAT? Some of us know numbers, most of us run from numbers . Any kind of numbers: Hindu-Arabic, Roman, doesn't matter; they terrify many! Some of us know geometry. Most of us run from geometry. Any kind. Solid , plane, doesn't matter. Why is that? Numbers don't bite. Nor geometry. Yet the majority of us flee or freeze at their sight. Never bothering to go any further than appearances. Why is that! Numbers and forms are natural . Even intuitive. Plants, animals , insects, birds, microbes do them. Babies do them too. Too many adults run. Why is that ! Nature is a number. Our days are numbered. The hairs on our heads are numbered. We are numbered. Yet. We run from ourselves! How anomalous! Better measure up to form amplitudes, magnitudes, plenitudes, if not our numeracy fear will leave us immured in desuetude! Why is that?

MISSOURI MISSISSIPPI RIVER CONFLUENCE AND RACE

Ironically , the same 3,000 acres of land at the confluence of the Missouri & Mississippi Rivers, in St. Charles County, Missouri, at issue here, was formerly bequeathed to the black descendants of a white father who had married a black woman, before the Civil War. The Missouri Supreme Court disallowed the testamentary bequest in the white father's will, because it was illegal, under state law, which forbade bequests to black children by their white fathers. So, their valuable landed legacy was lost! I learned of this travesty in the 1980s, when I was a volunteer attorney helping such persons for the Emergency Land Fund (ELF), based in Atlanta, while employed as an Assistant U. S. Attorney in Kansas City, Missouri. An heir of this black family had sought me out through ELF. I cannot pull up the case presently, but when I printed it off back in the 1980s, for him, the heir wept openly that an unsettling family rumor had at last been confirmed, as true, if sad. Instead, an article by a former Missouri Supreme Court justice in 2007 that gives a flavor for the state's antebellum legal context is also annexed. http://m.stltoday.com/news/local/columns/tony-messenger/messenger-busch-scion-issues-warning-over-flood-plain-development/article_8f0b82d9-bc69-5bcf-adc3-144aeeff2352.html?mobile_touch=true https://www.courts.mo.gov/page.jsp?id=8827

MY MATURATION

The exciting prospect of "the first black" this-or that, or "a black" head of this- or- that, that I formerly longed for and celebrated in my younger years, faded fast after the appointment of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court. Now, fidelity matters ; truth matters; virtue matters; rigor matters, much more than race! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Supreme_Court_Building

PHARAOH AND WIFE

ANTONIN SCALIA'S ANTINOMY

ANTONIN SCALIA'S ANTINOMY The late Antonin Scalia, former Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, who died February 13, 2016, said something in an earlier televised book interview on CNN, about the "genius" of the Greeks "in Athens in 2,000 B. C.," during its commemorative replay, that I has just happened to see. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W7bfhzqspKc I was stunned, as well as informed, that such an erroneous historical declaration could issue from this man, this iconic "conservative" jurist, who had so long enjoyed a rich reputation as learned, even as erudite., without contradiction ! Homer, claimed by some to be the first literate Greek, author of wrote the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey," lived about 700 B.C. Socrates , Plato, and Aristotle lived 300-400 years after Homer. Athens, the center for that irruption of that "genius," as claimed by Justice Scalia, did even not exist as such before 600 B.C. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_philosophy If they were aware of this error, CNN's interviewer, Piers Morgan, said nothing, nor did Brian Garner, Justice Scalia's co-author, of their book, "Reading the Law;" neither did CNN'S anchor in Atlanta. Either they were all ignorant of the actual historical facts respecting Greek "genius" or they were eliding the truth on national television ! Either way, I was amazed by the antinomy exhibited by Antonin Scalia whose alleged learning was legendary. "Reading the Law" and misstating the facts, antinomy yes! ANTINOMY is irony, or contradiction, involving two independent predicates, which may be true separately but not jointly. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/antinomy

JUDGEMENT SCENE

Judgment scene: Weighing the fleshy hearts of man against the weight of a feather -- energy and matter balanced

CONFIDENCE

CONFIDENCE Confidence is a major part of any endeavor, maybe the major part. Undermining that self-confidence that lies latent in one's adversary or opponent is integral to victory. Of course your enemy perfectly understands this strategy very well and is assiduously seeking to do the same thing to you in turn, by any means necessary, even by boasting, mockery, lampooning ! Confidence is neither rashness nor foolhardiness. It is, rather, the fruit of preparation and experience . Such confidence was displayed by young David, who already having slain both a bear and a lion, while defending his father's flock, had no fear of the giant Philistine Goliath, who mocked Israel's army.

BARREN COFFERS . RELUCTANT LENDERS. SECESSION AND LINCOLN

http://abrahamlincolnsclassroom.org/abraham-lincoln-in-depth/abraham-lincoln-and-civil-war-finance/

HOMEOSTATIC MILES

ho·me·o·sta·sis [hoh-mee-uh-stey-sis] NOUN 1. the tendency of a system, especially the physiological system of higher animals, to maintain internal stability, owing to the coordinated response of its parts to any situation or stimulus that would tend to disturb its normal condition or function. 2. Psychology a state of psychological equilibrium obtained when tension or a drive has been reduced or eliminated. 3. Entomology the ability of members of a colony of social insects to behave cooperatively to produce a desired result, as when bees coordinate the fanning of their wings to cool the hive. To be homeostatic is to be meek, mild, mellow, like Miles Davis; spiritually cooled out, adapted to what is; insouciant is another description of it, can you dig it? TOO MUCH OR TOO LITTLE OF ANYTHING IS NOT AT ALL GOOD. BALANCE, EVENNESS, HOMEOSTASIS, EQUANIMITY, EQUIPOISE ARE BEST. AMEN

BIDDY BRIDGET MASON

"Ask a Slave: The Web Series Like This Page · February 15, 2014 · Edited · Biddy Bridget Mason (1815-1891) was born into slavery and given as a wedding gift to a Mormon couple in Mississippi named Robert and Rebecca Smith. In 1847 at age 32, Biddy Mason was forced to walk from Mississippi to Utah tending cattle behind her master’s 300-wagon caravan. After four years in Salt Lake City, Smith took the group to a new Mormon settlement in San Bernardino, California in search of gold. When Biddy Mason discovered that the California State Constitution made slavery illegal, she had Robert Smith brought into court on a writ of habeas corpus, and the court freed all of Smith’s slaves. Now free, Mason and her three daughters (probably fathered by Smith) moved to Los Angeles where they worked and saved enough money to buy a house at 331 Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles. Biddy was employed as a nurse, midwife, and domestic servant. She was one of the first black women to own land in the city of Los Angeles. She was crafty enough to use part of her land as a temporary resting place for horses and carriages, and people visiting town paid money in exchange for the space. This can be considered the first "parking lot" in Los Angeles! Knowing what it meant to be oppressed and friendless, Biddy Mason immediately began a philanthropic career by opening her home to the poor, hungry, and homeless. Through hard work, saving, and investing carefully, she was able to purchase large amounts of real estate including a commercial building, which provided her with enough income to help build schools, hospitals, and churches. Her financial fortunes continued to increase until she accumulated a fortune of almost $300,000. Her grandson, Robert Curry Owens, a real estate developer and politician, was the richest African-American in Los Angeles at one time. Her most noted accomplishment was the founding of First African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, now the oldest church in Los Angeles, where she also operated a nursery and food pantry. Moreover, her generosity and compassion included personally bringing home cooked meals to men in state prison. In 1988, Mayor Tom Bradley had a tombstone erected at her unmarked grave site and November 16, 1989 was declared “Biddy Mason Day”. In addition, the highlights of her life were displayed on a wall of the Spring Center in downtown Los Angeles, an honor befitting Los Angeles’s first Black female property owner and philanthropist." WOW! I would love to read more about this Biddy Bridget Mason, who was a legendary AME church-founding; Mississippi-to-Utah-walking; personal freedom lawsuit filing; financial empire-building; philanthropic-LA sister!

FEDERAL RULES OF CIVIL PROCEDURE

Since the federal courts' rules impose very rigid deadlines upon lawyers in civil cases without regard to the size of the lawyer's firm or anything else, it would be only fair to impose equivalent or commensurate deadlines on the federal courts, as well, to be fair to all lawyers and litigants, regardless of size or anything else. Justice delayed is justice denied, to lawyers and to their clients! "Juice for the goose also suits the gander!

good/bad seed

The sowers of good seed seldom know, if their good work will ever show . The sowers of bad seed readily see, what harm their evil seeds will be! Good crops grow fast but weeds grow faster, leeching life like alabaster!

SURROUNDED BY SYMBOLOGY

SURROUNDED BY SYMBOLOGY In "Huck Finn," it was the river. In "Tom Sawyer," it was the cave . In "Moby Dick," it was the whale. In "Roots," it was the slaveship. Symbols reify literature, bring it alive; attach its imagery to reality . Symbols do the same in politics, religion, mathematics, art, music, farming, building, navigating, medicine and all else. Symbols reify, vivify, personify, allegorize, symbolize, algorithmize, animate. Symbols lock in, matching mental images to material embodiments. Giving someone the finger or two symbolizes; as does sticking. out the tongue. Shaking the head, finger or buttocks, also sends silent signals, like grabbing the crotch a la Michael Jackson, or yawning. Symbols speak across languages and time: eating, drinking, symbols are commonly understood when in uncovered ancient art & artifacts. The flag, any flag, is a symbol. The gavel is a symbol as is the gun, the noose, burning cross, the hood. "Whiteness"is an American symbol like its coerced, if colored, condign, correlative "blackness." Both racial--also symbols--their tropes have overspread the earth with allied, often mendacious myths, in their titanic, ritual battle for cultural symbolic supremacy on the earth. The lion is a symbol; so too is the elephant ; the fox; the turkey; the wolf; the donkey; the fish. Theoretically, that is, archetypally, mankind itself is probably mere symbols on a divine chess board, "chess," itself being but another symbolic representation of life. The modern alphabet is a series of successive symbols. The pyramids are symbols, the Great Sphinx is a symbol; so too are hieroglyphics. And the cross. Yin and yang are symbols; as are the star and crescent; indeed all of nature is! Even the stars above. They too are symbols like water. Can we be other than symbols, ourselves? Wisps of cosmic ideas? Smile! (Ha! another symbol!)

UNCERTAIN ESSENCES

UNCERTAIN ESSENCES One's conception of oneself is a consequence of experience, when compared to others of like kind. That personal conception is ever dynamic and always evolving as new information comes into your mind for processing about yourself relative to others in space & time. At your school you may be the fastest runner, but not so beyond. This latter fact is experiential either in personam or by reading records. Imprinting is very powerful . A baby eagle may think it's a chicken, too, until one day it looks up above the barnyard, and sees an eagle flying. Then a deep-set stirring within the soul of the eagle says, "Spread your wings, little eagle, fly away!" Like that little eagle in the barnyard are we, rarely ever knowing who or what we are, just trying to blend into the barnyard, where we were never meant to be, by design nor by destiny; being there by fortuity. But, inevitably, some day, you may look up and see something that causes a strangely familiar stirring within your soul; you may hear it in your heart or feel it in your bones; even smell or taste its succulent textures. That calling is divine. It is saying, "Come out, little eagle!" It is the God's Eternal Essence activating your uncertain essence, saying unto you, "There is water." Asking you "what prevents you now from being baptized?" Acts 8:36. "Wade in the water. Wade in the water, children ! Wade in the water. God's gonna trouble the water."

ORIGEN'S WAY

Plato is an awesome philosopher. A student of Socrates, he taught Aristotle, another icon. But Plato whom I love, and Aristotle whom I respect, both lived and taught several centuries before Jesus lived and taught. Jesus' impact upon me has been greater than both Plato and Aristotle. What they all have in common is Egypt. Plato studied there over 10 years and knows it as blessed of the gods. Aristotle relocated and lived as long there, where he allegedly wrote his 1,000 books, while vastly, heavily, incessantly "borrowing" from the Great Library of Alexander, that later was burned to the ground. Jesus was carried there to Egypt as a baby, by Joseph and Mary, when fleeing the bloody wrath of Herod. There he too remained, until the prophesy was fulfilled "Out of Egypt have I called my son." Hosea 11:1. Roughly 185 years after Jesus died, on Cavalry, there arose another exegete, philosopher, theologian named Origen in Egypt, who was raised a Christian by his father, from childhood. This man, Origen, after the Apostle Paul, who also lived after Jesus' death, had perhaps the greatest impact upon "the way," later now known as Christianity. Origen's teacher is said to be Ammonias Saccas, another priest, even more mysterious in Alexandria, Egypt. There Origen was a friend of, and a fellow student of Ammonias' with, with Plotinus, the renown author of "The Enneads." The Enneads is a work which essentially codifies the primordial "Memphite theology" of ancient Egypt. Origen was privy to this theology and to the ensuing philosophies of Socrates and Plato which arose from that ancient theology's tenets. By and through the prismatic means of all of these present and previous influences, Origen interpreted "the way" -- Old and New Testaments--his way, spiritually. By reason of his exegesis ON FIRST PRINCIPLES he was later declared a heretic by the later leaders of the orthodox Christian church, which rejected its Egyptian roots, in preferring its own doctrinal Christianity. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/origen/ I am reading ON FIRST PRINCIPLES, now, as I travel along the way.

UNITY IN ACTION

"The great hindrance to the advancement of the free colored people is the want of unity.... "[T]he main reason why we are not united is that we are not equally oppressed. This is the grand secret of our lack of union. You cannot pick out five hundred free colored men in the free states who equally labor under the same species of oppression. In each of the free states, and often in different parts of the same state, the laws, or public opinion, mete out the colored man a different measure of oppression... "[F]or there must be a common oppression to produce a common resistance. "Hence, also we have too long blamed ourselves with the want of union without sufficiently inquiring into the cause thereof. We have attributed to innate fault of character which really belongs to the circumstances which surround us--And now that we have traced our want of union to this its real course--I mean unequal oppression--how shall we discover the remedy for our disunion?... "If it be true that the main reason for our disunion lies in the fact that we are not equally oppressed, then we must seek to create within ourselves such a hearty hatred of oppression that any wrong to one shall be a wrong to all; or we must seek to find without ourselves some general form of oppression continuous in character , against which we may all, as one man, combine and continuously struggle until we are free and equal." P.98, 100, "Unity in Action," THE WORKS OF JAMES MCCUNE SMITH: BLACK INTELLECTUAL AND ABOLITIONIST edited by John Stauffer (2006)

OSIRIAN FORM AND SUBSTANCE

Form and Substance and Breath Substance conforms to form, how or why exactly, being a divine mystery. Does form irrupt from energy's inert substance? Or: Is energy's inert substance teased into being by its cosmic form? Form appears first, soon followed by substance, being form's maturity. Form announces "I am"-- its identity. Substance completes form's destiny. Form is sketch: substance pigment. Form outlines . Substance colors in. Form is fraction . Substance is whole. Form is flesh; substance is spirit. Form is body. Substance is soul. One alone is impotent: substance lacking form; form lacking substance. It takes both: form and substance to subsist, but it takes the "breath" of life to exist. It invigorates the whole. These three make both me and thee: form, substance, and a breath of life.

REJOICING WITH STONES

REJOICING WITH STONES! Consciousness when contrasted with obliviousness recoils inwardly. How dare anyone, it asks, dare to compare the two opposites states? Obliviousness is the absence of consciousness. https://www.google.com/search… Consciousness is the absence of obliviousness. https://www.google.com/search… Yet, life innervates each. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/innervates Life, then, is the link between the two states of being, consciousness and obliviousness. "Living stones " is an expression in the Bible. 1 Pet.2:5. Elsewhere, the scriptures say that "the stones will cry out ." http://biblehub.com/luke/19-40.htm Thus, "life" innervates, actuates, saturates even that which we perceive to be as dead as a rock! The lattice of life is their geometry, as life is our own lattice-geometry. "Life" innervates the Milky Way galaxy and its 100,000 lights years of breadth, around whose 'black hole' center our humble solar system revolves, once, every 230 million years, at 828,000 miles per hour. https://www.google.com/search… And our God is the great Geometer binding, linking consciousness with obliviousness as man, so in stones! Same source, same substance, man and stones; consciousness and obliviousness; all life linking geometry are from the great God of all, known as the Great Geometer! Humble yourself then humans and rejoice with the Galaxy and stones!

HOT SHOWERS

A hot shower is a common feature today. But, not so long ago, showers--let alone, hot ones--were rare. And very much appreciated! My daddy, who was raised on a family-owned farm in Mississippi, in the 1920-30s, and who escaped the drudgery of farming just in time to join the Jim Crow-conditions of blacks in the World War 2 army of the early 1940s, was one man who could, and who did, definitely appreciate the later "luxury" of hot showers. Often, as he exited the shower, ensconced in towels, he would say, "Ahh, Lord! That was a good hot shower!" He expressed it with such exultant sincerity in his voice's tone and timbre, that you just knew that he meant it. You also knew from his smiling face that his having had no prior access to such hot toilet, consistently, in his earlier days had deepened his appreciation for them in his latter days. Whenever I exit my own hot shower now, I think of my daddy and smile!

TO ELECT A BLACK PRESIDENT

I remember attending the National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana, in 1972, as a senior in college at Howard University, when I was also the Editor-in-Chief of THE HILLTOP, our weekly student newspaper. Accompanying me on the trip was one of our brilliant photographers, Larry Holland, who is now working in the film industry. Watching our leaders and their delegations up close, I recall being distressed by their egos and by the persnickety sniping that paralyzed the process of political marshaling. I particularly recall the Michigan delegation 's walking out, led by Coleman Young, and Roy Innis' revolting harangues. Of course, Jesse Jackson's dramatic onstage spinning histrionics at the end of his sermonette brought down the house. Nothing substantive occurred, as many had predicted , largely because politics is about money, which we had too little of! At any event, Larry and I stayed at the home of my great aunt, Mattie Nash, and Uncle Paul Nash, as he chauffeured me about in a bright yellow Deuce and a Quarter! So, we had fun eating, witnessing, visiting. These thoughts come to mind as I read Hubert Henry Harrison 's WHEN AFRICA AWAKES (1920), where he speculates on what it may take to elect a black President. He would be pleased to know that less than a century later, we have twice elected a black President, and that it did not take a separate political party to pull off that feat!

ENVY

ENVY Does a snowflake envy one another? Does a raindrop or leaf or blade of grass? Why then do humans envy, being that they too are from the same source as all others on earth; or Indeed, the same as all others in the entire infinite and eternal universe ?

AMERICA IS OUR HOME!

AMERICA IS OUR HOME! It is well worth recalling this black history month that not many forays outside of America have fared too well for many black emigrationists. Whether we speak of Paul Cuffee's foray into Sierra Leone in the 1800s; of Nova Scotia with the British in the 1700s-1800s; of Liberia with the American Colonization Society, 1800s; of Nigeria with Martin R. Delaney, 1800s; of Haiti with Rev. Holly, 1800s; or to Guyana with Jim Jones, late 1900s, they failed. Even most of the slaves who had successfully escaped to Canada returned to America after the Civil War; indeed, many of those brave men who fled, returned to fight for freedom DURING the Civil War. There was the Marcus Garvey 's "back to Africa " movement that was sabotaged both in America and in Liberia, by governments' intrigues. Liberia, its intended destination in the 1920s, sold the large acreage allotted to to Garvey's UNIA to Firestone Rubber Company. Moreover, The Universal Negro Improvement Association's two ships were also insufficiently unseaworthy to sail due to tampering, by enemies, some say. Some smaller groups have quietly slipped away to various other spots, without fanfare, like the Original African Hebrew Nation of Jerusalem who went to Israel via Liberia in the 1960s under the leadership of the late Ben Ammi, formerly of Chicago, Illinois . From the foregoing, one thing is clear: Our destiny is here. This was decided long ago in 1817 in Bethel AME Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where 3,000 free black men, under such leaders as Richard Allen, Robert Purvis, and others, refused the enticements of the colonizers to leave America, and their enslaved brethren, for Liberia in a unanimous vote, with no opposition! It's already a done deal. America is our home. Period!

HAPPY BLACK HISTORY MONTH!

Happy Black History Month TO ALL!

BLACK HISTORY AND MARIJUANA

Lacking any direct proof, I hypothesize the possibility that the anti-marijuana "Reefer Madness" federal government criminalization movement of the 1930's, and later, is causally related to the "Harlem Renaissance" of the 1920's. That was when black American blues, jazz musicians, writers, artists, actors and others galvanized huge swaths of the white populations of America and Europe with their amazing musical and artistic virtuosity and spirit . White supremacy is malevolently premised upon the denial of personhood to black people, anciently or presently, as its judicial decrees and customs have attested. Such lies were pierced, literally and figuratively, by the era's sexual and sensual marijuana-liberated passions and ideals. Back of all of this is the fact that marijuana, "bang," ganja, hemp, pot, or any number of other names, itself, indigenous to Africa. Having been cooked, or smoked, ritualistically there, or used medicinally, long before the pyramids or the sphinx were conceived, marijuana is a source black power and culture. Its introduction to whites threatened white supremacists' ruling paradigm. (One wonders if these mighty megaliths were conceived under the influence of THC, "cannabis sativa's"--marijuana's-- active ingredient? THC was found in the bones of ancient Nubian mummies, over 2,000 years B.C.. Ancient Nubians descended the Nile River to unify and found Kemet, (Egypt)). In modern days, "the war on drugs" and "mass incarceration" exposed in THE NEW JIM CROW by Michelle Alexander, Esq., of blacks boys and men, is also based culturally, legally, politically and criminally on the alleged "harm" of hemp, that they possess, sell, or distribute. In fact, it is simply undeniable, the true "harm" is that pernicious white" racism as historically expressed in the malevolent rubric of white supremacy. That is the "harm!" Again, I am simply musing on marijuana on this 1st day of black history month! I lack any proof, but my postulate, paradigmatically corroborates.