STOP FEARING MATH AND READING!

STOP FEARING MATH AND READING, BLACK FOLKS! Mathematics were invented by Africans. So say Plato, Aristotle, and other Greeks, to whom latter day Western Europeans and Americans presume to attribute this divine science, as its creators, despite contradicting exemplars in thousand-year old carved stone, rock edifices from Kemet to Nubia. Africans also invented writing. They actually possessed three kinds : hieroglyphics, hieratic and demotic. To them are due mankind's earliest holy, medical, scientific, military, poetic, aphoristic, mathematical, technical, and literary writings that are etched indelibly in stone, or that are calligraphied on their native papyrus. Yet, to judge from the aversive conduct of most African Americans, the ones who fear mathematics like the plague, and who scorn, or abhor reading and writing, e.g., "to hide something from a black man put it in a book," one would be very doubtful of African descent due to such fright. To flee one's natural heritage is not only unnatural, but flight is shameful, unnecessary, wasteful, and pitiful. If African Americans are ever to be free, as they constantly claim that they want to be, then, they must not only free themselves of such spooky phobias over mathematics, reading, writings; but black folks must rally to mathematics, reading, writing, as progeny; they must converge upon them, learn of them, to love them all again as long-lost beloved kindred!

PROTRACTOR

MEASURING BY ANOTHER "MEASURE" Measure for measure means tit for tat; this for that; reciprocal action, reaction. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, at least this was once assumed true. It is in the Bible, and it is still a part of the Standard Model in physical science, from Isaac Newton's work. http://biblehub.com/matthew/7-2.htm http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/newtlaws/Lesson-4/Newton-s-Third-Law However, this may not be so under all circumstances nor conditions. It now appears that "reciprocal" may not be as predictable as supposed. For years, I sought the opposite of linearity in causality. This "causal ambiguity" comes very close to it. It also seems to refute physics' standard model by complementing its certainly with its own measure of quantum uncertainty. "There is no well-defined order of events." This assertion is made by Phillip Walther of the University of Vienna. Phillip Walther's group's 2015 experimental findings "mash up causality: the idea that one thing leads to another. It is as if the physicists have scrambled the concept of time itself, so that it seems to run in two directions at once." Says, a June 28, 2017, NATURE magazine article by Phillip Bell, "How Quantum Trickery Can Scramble Cause and Effect," which is subtitled "Logic-defying experiments in quantum causality can twist the notion of time itself." http://www.nature.com/news/how-quantum-trickery-can-scramble-cause-and-effect-1.22208?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20170629&spMailingID=54382085&spUserID=MjI1NzY1NDYzMzk0S0&spJobID=1184869696&spReportId=MTE4NDg2OTY5NgS2 Thus as sequential linearity and logical causality are not exclusive in nature, neither, then, is measure for measure; tit for tat; this for that ; nor is Newton's law of reciprocity. Translation: A response to that famous, idiomatic query about which came first, the chicken or the egg maybe "Each exist, each coexist but order is unknowable!" Amen.

FIRST KANSAS COLORED VOLUNTEER INFANTRY CENOTAPH

cenotaph noun [ C ] UK ​ /ˈsen.ə.tɑːf/ /ˈsen.ə.tæf/ US ​ /ˈsen.ə.tɑːf/ /ˈsen.ə.tæf/ ​ a public monument (= special statue or building) built in memory of particular people who died in war, often with their names written on it WE--THE AMEN SOCIETY OF BROOKS CHAPEL A.M.E. CHURCH-- BUILT THIS CENOTAPH (MEMORIAL TO THE DEAD) IN BUTLER, MISSOURI, TO THE MEMORY OF THE FIRST KANSAS COLORED VOLUNTEER INFANTRY, ON THE TOWN SQUARE, THAT WAS PUBLICLY UNVEILED IN OCTOBER 2008 TO ENTHUSIASTIC CROWDS, SPEECHES. THEY WERE THE FIRST BLACK TROOPS TO FIGHT IN THE CIVIL WAR, OCTOBER 28-29, 1862, IN BATES COUNTY, MISSOURI. A STATE PARK TO THEM WAS DEDICATED IN 2008, AT THE ACTUAL BATTLE SITE, CONSISTING OF SOME LOVELY FORTY-ACRES.

PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCES

PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCES ARE ESSENTIAL ON EVERY SCALE OF SOCIETY TO ACHIEVE EQUITY, HOMEOSTASIS. DO YOU. BE. YOU. SEEK YOU IN NATURE, IN OTHERS, AND ESPECIALLY, FOREMOST, IN YOURSELF.

NARMER PALETTE

"Even before the invention of writing, ancient Egyptian rulers were keen to record their military victories for posterity. An incised tableau, carved into a rock alongside a desert route behind Thebes, seems to record the earliest known historical event: a battle between two competing rulers in the second half of the fourth millennium BC, part of the long process of political and territorial consolidation that led to the foundation of the Egyptian state. The monument that signals the moment of foundation , the Narmer Palette, likewise shows a scene of military victory, this time with the addition of brief hieroglyphic labels to identify the main actors. Egyptian kings were quick to realize the value of writing for propaganda purposes, so the battle narrative--whether long or short, whether recording a civil war...or a foreign campaign...--became firmly established as a major genre of Egyptian writing from the earliest times." P.45, "Battle Narratives," WRITINGS FROM ANCIENT EGYPT (2016) translation by Toby Wilkinson

ERSATZ

When one group contrives a fake to displace another fake, sooner or later, all the fakes' vaunted inversions reveal what is true; and what has resolutely remained as true, under all of their plagiarisms; and mythological ersatz.

INANE URBANE

THE INANE AND THE URBANE "On the merits" is one thing. But, under, behind, within the merits, is quite another; is where the action is. Merits" are material like men. Ethics are material like women. They are man-made. Whatever is man-made is subject to man's ways. Man's ways can be devious, duplicitous , perfidious, untrue. When I applied to be a judge in Jackson County, Missouri, in the late 1980s using the famous "Missouri Non-Partisan Court Plan," I purposely did not submit the customary package of political endorsements and accolades which that vaunted process claims to decry, discourage in its rules. That I had not done so was the subject of curious comment before the selection panel before whom I spoke. Other judicial aspirants had submitted the exact materials that the rules and theory of our "merit selection process" claimed to disdain. Naturally, I did not become a Jackson County, Missouri judge . Merits are material not spiritual. Ethics must be as material as well. Speaking of ethics, in the 1990s, I took a notion to run for the Kansas City Board of Education, given its difficulty in properly educating its charges amid whirling judicial, political and economic interests. The process initial application process was supposed to be "confidential," until one formally submitted a petition with requisite signatures to run for the seat. Here again, the mere receipt of a "confidential" application by me to run for a seat from an employee, at once, triggered a torrent of public speculation from its then-School Board Chairman. I chose not run. So the very next time that someone endorses the merits or the ethics, remember that in our materialistic dimension and society, they do not really mean it, but publish such to eliminate the inane, not the urbane!

BROTHER ROY ALLEN

WHEN I WAS ASKED ABOUT MY "IDEOLOGY" BY A RED, BLACK, AND GREEN CACHET BROTHER NAMED ROY ALLEN, BACK IN THE DAY, ON THE YARD, I WAS CONSTRAINED TO SAY THAT I HAD NONE. ROY'S WAS "PAN-AFRICANISM," BEFORE HE BECAME A REPUBLICAN IN THE GEORGIA LEGISLATURE. HE DIED A FEW YEARS AGO; WAS A SCHOOLMATE OF CLARENCE THOMAS, A FELLOW ATTORNEY. RECENTLY, IT OCCURRED TO ME THAT MY PHILOSOPHY IS TRUTH. THANK YOU BROTHER ROY FOR INQUIRING. REST IN PEACE, BISON BROTHER.

THE PERFECTION STANDARD

NO LESSER STANDARD THAN "PERFECTION" CAN CONQUER, PERFIDY, INDOLENCE, WICKEDNESS.

POST TRAUMATIC SLAVE SYNDROME

It is all too easy to impute to others what is inside of, what is unique to, you. In doing so, we necessarily thereby miss the mark, because everyone is unique, different, even though from the same womb, the same neighborhood, indeed, the same anything: church, lodge, country . These thoughts occur to me as I read POST TRAUMATIC SLAVE SYNDROME (2005) by Joy DeGruy, Ph.D. Her work is richly fascinating and peculiarly accurate for those among us, who have never overcome the demons of slavery that yet insinuate their souls. For these, it rings true. For others of African American descent her asseverations are not as true . Her many anecdotal experiences depict conduct that clearly reflects the residue of an enslaved mentality, that was clearly present in certain slaves. By no means were all slaves alike, though. Their differences are attested by the 400,000-plus, slaves who had acquired their own freedom by 1861, many of whom were self-employed, by the more than 50,000 other slaves who had also escaped to Canada, Florida, Mexico; including Liberia or Haiti! Lastly, many though yet enslaved had taught themselves to read and to write and to cipher, true freedom keys. Sadly "slave" has become an epithet, an insult, a curse to their descendants, whose own unwarranted ignorance of history has caused them to hate their forebears' legacies, which are the most powerful liberation corpus in recorded history, viewed from a context of loss. But, let me stop. There are those people whom her book flatly nails squarely. Regrettably most of them don't read classic nonfiction books, regularly ; preferring risqué fiction, if they read at all. Cable television and video they prefer. So, those many black persons who are still afflicted with the "Post Traumatic Slavery Syndrome," need to read her book! Most will not do so in the ordinary course. But for those who do read and who read classic nonfiction, this great book by Dr. DeGruy may offer critical insight for healing methods for those who are the principal victims of the black massive incarceration phenomenon that Michelle Alexander, Esq., has written about in her book THE NEW JIM CROW, a runaway bestseller.

COME HARD!

COME HARD! WHEN A BASEBALL GET HIT A BY A BASEBALL BAT, THERE IS LIFT-OFF. SUCH WAS OUR ENCOUNTER WITH DR. JAMES E, CHEEK IN SPRING 1970, AFTER THE STUDENT MURDERS AT KENT STATE, OHIO, AND JACKSON STATE IN JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI. AT HOWARD WE STUDENTS, TEACHERS, ADMINISTRATORS, HAD LIFT-OFF, AS PRESIDENT CHEEK: SUSPENDED FINAL EXAMINATIONS; GAVE STUDENTS THE OPTION OF ACCEPTING A "P" --FOR PASS--WITH CREDIT, OR THEIR THEN-CURRENT GRADE, WITH THE TWO WEEKS OF REMAINING CLASSES DEVOTED TO BLACK LIFE IN AMERICA DISCUSSIONS, FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE COURSE. THAT HAPPENED WHEN A HARD BALL STUDENT LEADERS LIKE MICHAEL HARRIS, SAMUEL WALLACE, GARY AYERS, "JOMO" AND OTHERS HIT A HARD BAT OF CHEEK. WE NEED MORE SUCH KINETIC ENCOUNTERS, ENERGY BLENDERS IN 2017, WHERE EVERYONE COMES HARD TO THE BIG SHOW.

"AT LEAST RESPECTABLE"

"I am not an educated man; but I have seen those, who are, writhe under this worse than brutal treatment, until my heart ached for them. May I be pardoned for saying , that the educated among us deserve the credit, at least, of a place and name among the respectable of the world?... "The richest colored man in Philadelphia cannot purchase a first-class railway ticket for New York; neither could he obtain for his son the opportunity of being educated in any college of the many in either New York or Philadelphia . What progress we have made has been under the frown of these obstacles. May it not be hoped that having combatted so much, we may overcome more? In that worst of all countries, the United States, the Negro not only exhibits the fact that 'all is not lost,' but he shows a tendency for improvement; he gives evidence of having cultivated this tendency; he displays success in this endeavor . I beg to claim, that if other people have entitled themselves to lasting honor from mankind, for what they have done, for the brilliant specimens of manhood they have presented to the world's admiring gaze--specimens of self-made men, in unfavorable circumstances--my people, having done something like it in circumstances a thousand fold more forbidding , should not be altogether struck from the roll of, at least, 'the respectable among mankind.'" P.195-196, AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FUGITIVE SLAVE by Samuel Ringgold Ward (1855, 1970)

VALUES

VALUES MONEY IS MAN-MADE. TIME IS GOD-MADE. THUS, TIME IS MORE PRECIOUS THAN MONEY. PUT ANOTHER WAY: MANY PEOPLE LIVE LIFE WITH NO MONEY. BUT, NO ONE LIVES LIFE WITH NO TIME. USE YOUR TIME FRUITFULLY, SO TIME AND MONEY FIND YOU. BUT IF YOU LIVE YOUR LIFE UNFRUITFULLY, TIME AND MONEY WILL FLEE FROM YOU.

ENCODED KINDRED

ENCODED KIN WE CAME FROM THEM. THEY ENCODED US. THEY CAME FROM OTHERS, WHO ENCODED THEM, AD INFINITUM, ALL THE WAY BACK, BEFORE A "BEGINNING." THUS IF WE ARE STILL HERE. THEY ARE STILL HERE ENCODED IN US.

"MATHEMATICS"

"There is another key problem explicitly identified in the heading of the 'Rhind Papyrus,' an educational document: the necessity for a correct method..., to be used in directing human intelligence in its effort to understand reality. The method envisaged in obviously the science of mathematics. For the Egyptian conception of mathematics required that the abstract sciences, for which correct method is prerequisite , be complemented by the applied and technical sciences. "Quite appropriately, so far in history, mathematics has been the most widely used science. What the ancient Egyptians clearly wanted was to inform the entire study of natural phenomena with mathematical reasoning, thus ensuring that mathematical method, built on exactitude and rigor, governed the conception of spiritual and material life. That is what they meant by 'knowing all mysteries, all secrets' through the methodical study of every aspect of nature, all of nature.... "The ancient Egyptians would have found nothing at all shocking in the vision of mathematics as the almighty science : 'All things are numbers;' 'Numbers rule the world.' This was exactly how they conceived of numbers, they who were the first to advocate mathematics as the scientific ideal. This Egyptian mathematical ideal is the general ideal of science. It has remained so without interruption since it was first articulated in the Nile valley.... "The power of numbers: a tool for understanding nature in its real and profound constitution--such was the ancient Egyptian vision." P.434-435, "Mathematics," AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY: THE PHARAONIC PERIOD 2780-330 BC, by Dr. Theophile Obenga (2004) 

RESTORATION CONSCIOUSNESS

RESTORATION CONSCIOUSNESS  Exactitude and precision in the measurement and description of natural phenomena is the basis of mathematics as that science was developed scientifically by Africans over many eons. It was the method of their religion and civilizations. These facts I have learned from studying such works as AFRICAN MATHEMATICS by Robin Walker (2014), AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY THE PHARAONIC ERA 2780-330 BC by Theophile Obenga (2004); by reading the rich and varied works of Cheikh Anta Diop, John G. Jackson, J. A. Rogers and others; and by reading its admission in THE LAWS by Plato, who says there that children's mathematics games at play were such as to put full grown Greek men to ignominious shame . Our STOLEN LEGACY -- to borrow the title of Dr. George G.M. James' classic-- also consists of an awareness of our own broader historical knowledge loss; that of the African people's primordial identity with mathematical mastery, in scientific, technical, educational and spiritual realms which was our forebears' greatest gift to posterity. To have lost the knowledge of what was lost by the waves of invasive species from of outside of Africa, wave upon wave, like army ants at a family picnic, we were routed! But we, Africans in the Americas, have genetically resulted from their rout. So our restoration-consciousness truly must consist of reacquiring the multidimensional mathematical African knowledge that once was lost, but now is found. That same gift of restoration-consciousness, if reacquired, will enable us to know that what was lost, was never lost, but reconstituted anew, since as in divine physics, it is still here like us!

AHMES

"Ahmes, the Egyptian mathematician, was the first scholar in history to find a value close to PI. The same Ahmose was also the first mathematician in the world to achieve the squaring of the circle , a problem famous for centuries on end. In all objectivity, the history of science ought to acknowledge these facts." P.433, AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY: THE PHARAONIC PERIOD 2780-330 BC, "Mathematics," by Dr. Theophile Obenga (2004)

ARK

IVORY ARK ANCIENT EGYPT

ROD AND STAFF

…3He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name's sake. 4Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. 5You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows.… Psalms 23:4-5

WHO'S DOING THE TALKING?

WHO'S DOING THE TALKING? The polite "conversations about race" proposal that had been so popularly touted, promoted, so broadly bruited about, following then first-term President, Barack Obama's White House meeting with Harvard's Dr. Henry Louis Gates, and the Boston police officer, who had arrested Dr. Gates for purportedly "breaking and entering" his own home, almost certainly has been surpassed by now -President Donald Trump's almost daily follies, diversions, tweets, lies, acts, and absurdities that have monopolized every public and private conversation, everywhere on earth by everyone! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5943630/White-House-beer-summit-race-row-professor-and-policeman-make-peace.html

ENEMY?

Why are our enemies our enemies? The altered relationship with Russia prompts my inquiry about our enemies . Upon what basis are our enemies our enemies? Years ago , Muhammad Ali remarked famously that "No Vietcong ever called me 'nigger!'" This fact justified his own refusal to accept induction into the armed forces of the United States. If Russia is not our enemy, then who is? Upon what basis are they enemies? This question could be asked of Iraq, Afghanistan , et al. Enemies threaten one's personal life, livelihood, family, daily bread , land, personal property or wealth. It is fair to ask who is your personal enemy, then to extrapolate more broadly to your national enemy. If no one is, then, why fight a war?

FORGIVING AND LOVING

FORGIVING AND LOVING Forgiveness starts with you and with me. Expiating oneself of blame unburdens one's heart, mind, soul. Forgiving oneself renews one's spirit, self-confidence in oneself. Forgiving oneself also bestows the courage in us to forgive others for the past transgressions committed against us. Self-forgiveness is the predicate for forgiveness of others. Even as self-love precedes all other loves, forgiving and loving begin with you, with me; they then spread abroad to seed the earth, universe. 

1963-2017, "BLACK LIVES MATTER"

http://1963-2017, "BLACK LIVES MATTER?" "LITTLE STEVIE WONDER" A/K/A STEVELAND MORRIS, WAS A MUSICAL ENZYME, A POLY-RHYTHMIC CATALYST FOR MY GENERATION. HIS "FINGERTIPS" WAS REVOLUTIONARY MUSIC. AS WE AGED, AS WE LOVED, AS WE MELLOWED AND MATURED, WITH WONDER, MANY OF US BASKED IN THE WONDERMENT OF IT ALL: OF BERRY GORDY'S MOTOWN, OF "THE MOVEMENT," OF BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS, OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., OF PRESIDENT JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY, OF MALCOLM X, "EL-HAJJ MALIK EL-SHABAZZ." AS QUICKLY AS THEY CAME, THE SIXTIES, PASSED AWAY, EXCEPT FOR "LITTLE STEVIE WONDER," AND A DREAMY NOSTALGIA, AS WE ENTERED THE 1970'S, '80S, 90S, 2000S, 2010S. THOSE OF US WHO LIVED TO REMEMBER, "STEVIE" BACK WHEN--THEN--ARE NOW BLESSED TO RECALL THAT STEVIE'S MUSIC AND MOTOWN'S MODULATED OUR MOMENTUM AND OUR MAGIC. STEVIE WONDER AS A SYMBOLIC ICON, EVOKES, EPITOMIZES, "1963'S BLACK LIFE," BEFORE : LOSS OF GOOD JOBS; FEDERAL URBAN DIVESTMENT; WHITE BACKLASH @ RICHARD NIXON PSYCHEDLIC MUSIC; HIPPIES AND DRUGS; BLACK PANTHER PARTY; MASS INCARCERATION; SINGLE-PARENT FAMILIES; HOUSING PROJECTS AND WELFARE; FORCED SCHOOL BUSING; DEMISE OF BLACK BUSINESSES; BLACK NEIGHBORHOOD DESTRUCTION; FAILING BLACK SCHOOLS; 24-HOUR CABLE TELEVISION; CRACK COCAINE'S "WAR ON DRUGS" DRIVE-BY SHOOTINGS; BLACK-ON-BLACK CRIME; MEGACHURCHES AMID MANY "UNCHURCHED" LEGAL POLICE "STAND YOUR GROUND" MURDERS. THERE WERE BLACK STRAGGLERS, OF COURSE. THESE WERE THOSE WHO SIMPLY OBSERVED, GOT BY, WHO DID NOT BOTHER TO ENTER SERIOUSLY THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM. THESE BECAME THE PREY FOR AVARICIOUS INJUSTICE, FOR ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION, THE MANTRAS. THERE WAS ALSO, MARVELOUSLY, FOR MANY OTHERS, LIKE ME,, A MEASURABLE "INTEGRATION," HOWEVER IT MAY BE DEFINED. IT WAS A STRUGGLE. BUT IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL STRUGGLE, BEFORE AND SINCE. EVEN SINCE 1963, DESPITE THE RAGING STORMS OF CHANGE, MOST BLACK AMERICANS HAVE MANAGED SUCCESSFULLY TO TACK INTO ADVERSE, REACTIONARY POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, SOCIAL HEADWINDS; MOST HAVE SKILLFULLY MANAGED TO ZIGZAG THEIR VARIOUS VESSELS INTO LIQUIDITY, INTO HOME-OWNERSHIP-BASED SECURITY; THUS, INTO PROSPERITY, AS VARIOUSLY DEFINED. TOO MANY BLACK PEOPLE, THOUGH, JUST AS TRAGICALLY, DID NOT, HAVE NOT, EVEN YET DO NOT, SUCCESSFULLY TACK NOR ZIGZAG. THEIR CRAFTS. THESE ARE MARTYRS OF SYSTEMIC SOCIAL FAILURES THAT HAVE TRAUMATIZED THEM, AND THEIRS, AND SOCIETY AT LARGE. THESE, BEING ,VULNERABLE, "LOW-HANGING FRUIT" COULD NOT RESIST THE TUG OF NATURAL GRAVITY. NOW THAT STEVIE WONDER HAS AGED INTO HIS MIDDLE '60S, ALONG WITH THOSE WHO REMEMBER THAT "BEFORE," BEFORE THE PATENT DIFFERENTIAL OUTCOMES OF BLACK AMERICANS' GAINS AND LOSSES, WHICH HAVE ACCUMULATED, SINCE THE HALCYON DAYS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY 1960'S, A COMPELLING QUESTION, NEE ASSERTION, HAS DEVOLVED IN OUR LEXICON THE QUESTION OF, WHETHER "BLACK LIVES MATTER" AND TO WHOM: RHETORICAL NO DOUBT BUT AS REAL AS LIFE. IT IS 2017. GIVEN OUR AMERICAN POLITICAL-ECONOMIC-LEGAL-SOCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE, I.E. "POLICE STATE," AND GIVEN ITS LEGAL-CULTURAL-EDUCATIONAL -RELIGIOUS LANDSCAPE, THAT HAVE COMBINED TO PRODUCE MANY DISJOINTED, MATERIALISTIC, IDENTITIES, EVEN OUR 'MAGNIFICENT MAN,' "STEVIE WONDER" HAS, HIMSELF, WONDERED TO WHOM "BLACK LIVES MATTER?" RHETORICALLY BUT NOT MUSICALLY. http://www.okayplayer.com/news/stevie-wonder-black-lives-matter.html

DEPLORABLE, BUT...

MCCONNELL DEPLORABLE, BUT... In retrospect, I must concede a grudging admiration for Senator Mitchell McConnell (R-Ky). He displayed keen political sagacity in relentlessly blocking President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee for almost a year, pending the outcome of the general Presidential election in 2016. His party won. That Supreme Court seat was filled by a 10th Circuit "conservative." So also will be dozens of federal court seats. One almost wonders if the Senate leader, whose own well-known "conservative" (Confederate) bonafides are beyond cavil, was somehow privy to advance gifts of prophesy? I am no fan of either President Donald Trump nor of Mitch McConnell. But I have to give him credit for the sheer ghastly venery of preserving late-Antonin Scalia's seat for another such "conservative, given all of the variables, like McConnell's own reelection. It was praiseworthy, even if it was also deplorable!

NATURAL FREIGHT

NATURAL FREIGHT As each second is freighted with unknown possibilities, so too is each person freighted with power. Second. Possibility. Person. Power. These four factors are our freight that we bear through life to its end. Jesus said "Greater works that these can you do, for I go unto my Father." He was concerned with the least of these, not the greatest of these. He told the bleeding woman "your faith has made you whole." He told the paralytic man at the pool "Pick up your bed and walk." Many more "miracles" did he. Each one was freighted by the four factors, second; possibility; person; power. Each one of us is similarly "freighted," divinely freighted to do what God would have us to do and to be what God would have us to be. Do your part , do your best, and the rest will take care of itself, by itself, by reason of your activities. This, then, is my contribution to the "revolution:" whatever your object may be, perfect your activities and it will come to be by God's grace and mercy: magnified, multiplied. That is the natural freight of Jesus.

FATHER AND SONS

Me and two of my boys, now grown men

STATE MILITIAS

Never having served in the military, I know little about its system of organization. This may be "old hat" to veterans, but it fascinated me : "In 1865, the Kansas legislature enacted a new law to govern its enrolled militia. The legislature established the governor as the commander-in-chief and empowered him to appoint with the consent of the Senate, a military staff comprising a major general, four brigadier generals, four colonels (adjutant general, paymaster general, quartermaster general, and a surgeon general), three lieutenant colonels (all aides de camp) and a major (assistant adjutant). The generals could also appoint other staff officers. The state was organized as a division , divided into four brigade districts, which the major general could alter 'at pleasure.' "Militia companies were supposed to have not less than sixty nor more than one hundred men, and these citizen-soldiers elected their officers--a captain and two lieutenants. The captain in turn appointed his NCOs--five sergeants and eight corporals--and two musicians. Ten companies comprised a regiment, commanded by a colonel, with a lieutenant colonel and a major as the other field officers. The colonel could nominate four officers--an adjutant , quartermaster, surgeon and assistant surgeon--for his staff, subject to the governor's approval.... "During the 1870s, there was a surge of martial enthusiasm across the United States. This was stimulated in part by Civil War veterans 'who retained a longing for military association.'  Service in the National Guard, as many states began to call their organized militia, became a fashionable way for men to both express their masculinity and demonstrate their patriotism... "In 1877, massive railroad strikes across the nation convinced many state governments , especially in the East, that rejuvenated militias were necessary to deal with the threat of organized labor disputes....In 1879, concerned militia officers also gathered in St. Louis to found the National Guard Association 'to promote military efficiency throughout the active militia..., and to secure representation before Congress for such legislation as...may [be] necessary for this purpose...Kansas's share of this money came to more than eight thousand dollars." P. 32-34, "Strong, Healthy, Well-Developed Men," The Black Citizen-Soldiers of Kansas 1864-1902, by Roger D. Cunningham (2008)

ROUGHING UP JULY 4

I did not realize that two major Union victories: Gettysburg and Vicksburg both ended on July 4, 1863, until reading Mark Twain's ROUGHING IT, today, wherein he writes: "All the vast eastern front of Mount Davidson, overlooking the city, put on a funereal gloom...This unaccustomed sight turned all eyes toward the mountain; and as they looked, a little tongue of rich golden flame was seen waving and quivering in the heart of the midnight, away up on the extreme summit! In a few minutes the streets were packed with people gazing with hardly an uttered word, at the one brilliant mote in the brooding world of darkness....It was the flag!--though no one suspected it at first, it seemed so like a supernatural visitor of some kind...For a whole hour the weird visitor winked and blinked in lofty solitude ...And all that time one sorely tired man, the telegraph operator sworn to secrecy, had to lock his lips and chain his tongue with a silence that was like to rend them; for he, and only he, of all the speculating multitude, knew the great things this sinking sun had seen that day in the east--Vicksburg fallen, and the Union arms victorious at Gettysburg !" P. 831-832, Chapter LV, (1984) http://www.uc.edu/news/NR.aspx?id=17932

life and death

LIFE AND DEATH OCCUPY THE SAME SPACE; AS DO GOOD AND EVIL.

MATTHEW 5:45

BE PERFECT

MIGHT AS WELL BE PERFECT ! Are we not being held to a perfection standard, while at the same time, denying that such a perfection standard exists? If not, what, then, is error, accident, sin, negligence, crime, apostasy, fines, penalties: but social retribution imposed for alleged imperfections among us? Paradoxically, Jesus' admonition in John 14:12, "Be you therefore perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect," is already being applied, as though we had already attained perfection on the earth! Mankind, consequently, might as well pursue perfection plainly, openly, forthrightly, in every endeavor, discipline or pursuit, rather than to be penalized, ostracized, unceasingly, by government, by employers, or by general society, for not being "perfect." Ironically, what society usually does not claim as actual fact, perfection, and most often denies as being within the realm of human possibility, perfection, yet it is all the while punishing each human failure openly, as though perfection actually exists, and was also humanly attainable. By indirection, and inversion, therefore, since the larger society accepts the perfection standard by implication and practice, by penalty, punishment, banishment, imprisonment, forfeiture, seizure, capital punishment, we each might as well be perfect.We will be punished for not being perfect, surely, routinely. Thus, we might as well be it: So, Be Perfect!and be at peace!

GEOMETRY TO THE FORE!

GEOMETRY TO THE FORE!  A universal external reference that may be, that can be, respected, resorted to, researched by all, is to be greatly preferred to its opposite; some occult internal reference that lacks the attributes of the former, a universal external reference which can be proven, then applied, in the arts, crafts, sciences, humanities, mathematics, philosophy, in short the global convivial society of man. These thoughts rive me as I reflect upon the writings of Plotinus, an acclaimed African philosopher of the 3rd century AD, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, who wrote THE ENNEADS (1991), from whose chapter, "Against the Gnostics," I quote: "5. Still more unreasonably: There are men, bound to human bodies and subject to desire, grief, anger, who think so generously of their own faculty that they declare themselves in contact with the Intelligible World, but deny that the sun possesses a similar faculty, less subject to influence, to disorder, to change; they deny that it is any wiser than we, the late born, hindered by so many cheats on the way towards the truth. "Their own soul, the soul of the least of mankind, they declare deathless, divine; but the entire heavens and the stars within the heavens had no communion with the Immortal Soul, though these are far finer and purer grain than themselves--yet they are not blind to the order, the shapely pattern, the discipline prevailing in the heavens , since they are the loudest in complaint of the disorder that troubles our earth. We are to imagine the deathless Soul choosing of design the less worthy place, and preferring to abandon the nobler to the Soul that is to die." P.113. Geometry exhibits the universal external reference characteristics that have been deemed "attributes," above. Geometry has been imputed to Euclid, who also was of Alexandria, Egypt, whom most have claimed to be Greek, by latter-day speculation. Geometry's rigorous accuracy was featured in monuments thousands of years old, in megaliths that were already in existence in Egypt and Nubia before Euclid or Greece were born! I had already developed a solid appreciation for geometry in high school, which was sharpened when I read in "Natural Philosophy," Sir Isaac Newton 's magnum opus, that it, too, was based upon the proofs of EUCLID'S ELEMENTS, no less than Albert Einstein's general and special theories of relativity, had been as well! Very well, then, geometry it is, was, and shall be!

NOT MERE LABOR

NOT LIMITED TO MERE LABOR  To limit the African slave trade to mere labor is to diminish its true importance to that of dray animals, chattel. That limit tends to discount the value of Africans' intellectual and moral assiduities that were of as much importance to the taming of the new world as uncompensated labor. Africans contributed more than mere labor. As they still do, they also gave an entire panoply of other gifts, talents, proficiencies to their involuntary new world homes.

CHURCH AND ME

CHURCH FOLKS' HOPE AND ME  Momma once told me when I was questioning the efficacy of church in my late teens or early twenties that it gave the people something "to hold onto ; it gave them hope." Her explanation makes more and more sense as I age and reflect. Still though, I was not convinced . After law school, while living here, in Kansas City, I again excoriated the efficacy of the church among a group of fellow lawyers of the faith. I said that the black church was holding black people and black power back. One young woman, who was a dear friend, was totally dismissive of my black church criticism. She said that it was the ones who were in the black church who were the only ones doing the most wonderful, admirable things for our race; that the other ones, outside of the church were the problem, being criminals, drop-outs, welfare recipients and so on. I was convicted right then , as I reflected that my home training was strongly church-based , as was that of the other lawyers with whom I was conversing. Direct hit! In a dust storm one gets dusty. In the rain one gets wet . In a desert one desiccates, becomes dry. The place that one is immured may be most determinative of one's later "verdure," that is, one own personal value or productivity to society, to oneself, to one's family by simple logical deduction, and observation. Looking back over my black history, which was my passion, I was forced to realize that the ancient savants and philosophers were high priests, as were the latter-day ones as well; this was true of those in post-exilic American land who led our freedom wars, against "white" racism's lies. This realization buoyed me greatly. Also, my mother, Margie, had never abandoned me; she had never left me alone. Like St. Augustine of Hippo's mother, Monica, who never abandoned him, even when he was gone away from Carthage teaching in Rome, she never stopped writing letters, working on me for the Lord. Good, God-fearing mothers do not let go; never let go of their children. By the same token they respect and support their children and they talk to them about their own yet unresolved questions in the faith. My mother later asked me what "reconciled" or "reconciliation" meant. I explained it to her to the best of my ability using the phrase, "God and sinner reconciled." She seemed to be satisfied with that. Later, while visiting Butler, Missouri, the site of my first church, she had privately rebuked me for stating the "Apostle 's Creed" in public falsely. If I did so, I was ignorant of it; since the CME version that she knew that I was reared upon, differs slightly in its wording from my later, AME's. Hope sustains life. "Keep hope alive!" "Hope" has sustained our parents, grandparents, our great-great! Keep it going! It will keep you going! "Keep hope alive!" Rev. Jesse Jackson's expression is real. And is true in my life, and in many!

TRUMP AS TROPE?

Donald Trump may one day be a trope, a metaphor, a byword, a hissing for greedy, grasping, white-privileged people that lie relentlessly, who know just superficially; who reify material prosperity, philosophical asperity, and theological insincerity, with impunity !

MEDITATIONS ON LIFE

MONDAY MEDITATIONS ON "LIFE" A variety of forces or energies are brought to bear upon every point in existence continuously. We humans are not excepted from these varied phenomena, some of which we have named : gravity, temperature, pressure, humidity, radioactivity. On the earth, "life" is such a force. The fact of life, its mystery, wonder, exclusivity to earth is the focus of all of mankind's energies, as rightly it should and must be, in science, philosophy, history, religion, family, society, governments, dominions. Unfolding life's mysteries while we yet live, or reconciling ourselves to them, even attempting to do so, is the principal pursuit of the "living." It may also be the sole, not just the principal, preoccupation of people, since all people struggle to make a living amid and among the other forces that exist in space-time, in order to live, to survive, to create, to reproduce, to work, to prosper . Precipitation, coagulation, birth: all byproducts or forces, energies, to which we are heir, with whom we share and must bear, life and living on earth, from forces beyond our ken, knowledge, reckoning, which delight to invite us in as "friends."

FALLS

TO FALL DOWN IS ONE THING. TO KNOW THAT ONE HAS FALLEN IS THE NEXT. TO BE ABLE GET BACK UP IS THE THIRD. TO BE ABLE TO GRASP THEM ALL: THE FALL, THE KNOWLEDGE, THE RECOVERY AND THE REASON OF AND FOR THEM ARE INDEED DIVINE BLESSINGS.

RECOMPENSE

RECOMPENSE US OUR DUE, U.S.A. Recompense makes plenty of sense. Do it . Do it in Public; Private; Charity . To erase the the inequity; to end your iniquity and infamy of our racial misery. Such recompense makes plenty sense. Do it! Do it in Public; Private; Charity. Recompense restores the sacral imbalance in your soul and our soul . It is good for you and is past due to us.

COEFFICIENTS

THE EFFICIENT-DEFICIENT COEFFICIENT If a man, group or nation disregards God, by works; that is, by means, by acts, in totally disrespecting the rest of humanity in thought, word, or deed, then you have met up with sensate evil however masked by its appearance or rhetoric or religion. "Sensate" in the sense that they are feeling, sensible in part but not in whole: to itself, but not to others. These lack consistency with their own language, with their own acts. They lack a psychology that gives cognizance to supernatural powers that permeate, nature, God or man. Thus, to facilitate their rule, plunder and rapine of the earth, they would know what all there is, all the better to seize; in order to distort, contort, subvert all that has passed before to better claim it as their own; to be God unto themselves over all else. Such they have done and yet do. It is or was the season of perversion, but now is the season of reversion. When the day succeeds the night; when photons become entangled again, not disentangled, mangled. All that now exist are specially here to assist in this restructuring, in the restoration, of the primordial order, not the order primeval, ruler of evil. The efficient and deficient are both coefficients of the God of all for all.

RAIN DUST LIGHT

WE ARE LIKE RAIN, DUST, OR LIGHT Life is the greatest gift known to man. "Gift" because mankind did not give life to itself. It transferred life from God, to and through itself by attraction, coupling, refraction. All life is a function of a divine action-reaction, which we do not "know," literally; cannot, but may only experience analogously, indirectly; by observing other life, and by interpolating from all else about our own. That we cannot know in the intellectual sense; but do experience, feel, hear, intuit in the esoteric, abstract, instinctual sense of "knowledge" deepens the human subtext, or, mystery that is descended from, through the life, that is associated with our lives. This may also explain why the Savior Jesus Christ taught by anatomy, analogy, by example; as only by contrast and comparing could mankind come to fully know God the Father, the Mother, the all. But because man is descended from and associated with God/life, which is a gift of God to mankind, God's remoteness and infinity's vast "forevermoreness," if you will, have caused some men to believe that they are utterly alone; and are thus unaccountable to all in life or in after life, and to act accordingly. Their "belief" is counter-knowledge or is a form of counter-intelligence. Whether they are right or wrong, I do not presume to say. But, we all must return from whence we are come, in the end, evaporating like rain, dissipating like dust, or light.

SYMMETRY: LAW AND RELIGION

SYMMETRY : LAW AND RELIGION Thursday, June 15, 2017 Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman  I note with fascinating curiosity the appreciable symmetry in black iconic leadership involving both Prince Hall Masonry and robust black Christianity, especially that involving the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and the black Episcopal Church , whose elders and founders were Master Masons: Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, who date back to 1787, and the Free African Society, a black secular benevolence society, from which both denominations sprang. There is no doubt that what we now know as "Masonry" and "Christianity" are both diluted off-shoots of ancient Egyptian philosophy and mysteries, which they received from their ancient African predecessors, perfected, and applied geometrically and gratuitously to Greeks, Romans, and others, down to the present day in secret rituals, to select initiates. This made their cultural theft possible. One such was Father Moses Dickson of pre-Civil War St. Louis, who is reported to have organized thousands of black Masons to fight for freedom, before the Civil War broke out, obviating the need. Another such may have been Prince Hall, himself, who was also a devout Christian, like Booker T. Washington, Moses Mosiah Garvey, and Toussaint L’Overture, who were other devout and learned black Freedom Fighters. Almost surely also, Paul Cuffee, James Forten, David Walker and Nat Turner, fell within these broad parameters, as did Denmark Vesey, Robert Purvis, Frederick Douglass, Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshal, Martin Luther King, Jr., Honorable Elijah Muhammed, and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr,. all fall within these parameters. Both rituals insinuate black communities rural or urban. Perhaps you may have noted like symmetries in later black leaders, including the present day.