MEEKNESS

MEEKNESS Rare indeed is he or she who does not seek celebrity, but treasures anonymity; whose reward is in the achievement of works' realization, consummation. Such self-effacing dedication is known as meekness. Meekness was imputed to David, to Jesus, to Toussaint L'Overture, to Harriet Tubman and Dr. M L. King. Meekness' potency is its descent from divinity to some in humanity .

STUDENTS FOR BLACK AWARENESS AND ACTION

In 1968, at Webster Groves High School, we founded the Students for Black Awareness and Action to address the dispirited self-concepts that were then-pervasive among black students at our elite, suburban, St. Louis County, Missouri, high school. We also sought redress of long-standing grievances respecting the terms and conditions of our educational tenure from the high school administration. We had white and Hispanic members of both genders in our club, some of whom were quite instrumental in our ultimate successes inside and outside of our school. We engaged in many activities, such as: We presented black history lectures, raised money for Biafran (Nigerian) relief, ran candidates for elections to student government and for cheerleaders, sponsored parties, participated in a variety of racial-sensitivity symposiums, visited area high schools with a view toward SBAA-replication, published a newsletter, THE DARK SIDE, appeared on radio talk shows, hosted fundraisers, presented our list of demands which came due on the "Ides of March" 1969, participated (integrated) in the historically all-white, "Fourth of July Celebration" in 1968, as the first black entrant in its history--with our own float, and beauty queen contestant. We also left $3,000 in our bank account that we had raised from our many activities, to assure the perpetuation of our organization's existence. It still exists! Pictured above are the board of directors and officers, who were its youthful founders. Awareness of the black self within the context of a white (though purportedly egalitarian) American society were among our active enzymes, collectively and individually,

EARTHQUAKE : ROUGHING IT

Mark Twain in the classic, ROUGHING IT, writes of the effects and of its after-effects on humans that were brought on by an earthquake that he had witnessed, contemporaneously experienced while living and working as a reporter in San Francisco, California, after leaving Nevada: "As I turned the corner, around a frame house , there was a great rattle and jar, and it occurred to me that here was an item!--no doubt a fight in the house. Before I could turn and seek the door, there came a really terrific shock; the ground seemed to roll under me in waves, interrupted by violent joggling up and down, and there was a heavy grinding noise as of brick houses rubbing together. I fell up against the frame house and hurt my elbow. I knew what it was, now, and from mere reportorial instinct , nothing else, took out my watch and noted the time of day; at that moment a third and still severer shock came, and as I reeled about on the pavement trying to keep my footing, I saw a sight! The entire front of a tall four-story brick building in Third street sprung outward like a door and fell sprawling across the street, raising a dust like a great volume of smoke!... "The curiosities of the earthquake were endless . Gentleman and ladies who were sick, or taking a siesta, or had dissipated till a late hour and were making up lost sleep, thronged into the public streets in all sorts of queer apparel, and some without any at all. One woman who had been bathing a naked child, ran down the street holding it by the ankles as if it were a dressed turkey. Prominent citizens who were supposed to keep the Sabbath strictly, rushed out of saloons in their shirt-sleeves, with billiard cues in their hands. Dozens of men with necks swathed in napkins, rushed from barber shops, lathered to the eyes, or with one cheek clean-shaved and the other still bearing a heavy stubble...A prominent editor flew down stairs, in the principal hotel, with nothing on but one brief undergarment--met a chambermaid and exclaimed: 'Oh, what shall I do! Where shall I go!' She responded with naive serenity: 'If you have no choice, you might try a clothing store!'... "The first shock brought down two or three huge organ pipes in one of the churches. The minister, with uplifted hands, was just closing the services . He glanced up, hesitated, and said: 'However , we will eliminate the benediction!'--and the next instant there was a vacancy in the atmosphere where he had stood. "After the first shock, an Oakland minister said: 'Keep your seats! There is no better place to die than this'-- And added after the third: 'But outside is good enough!' He then skipped out at the back door." P.844-847. Chapter LVIII (1984)

WE ARE STARS

AS EACH STAR BEJEWELS HEAVEN, SO EACH LIFE BEJEWELS EARTH.

CONUNDRUMS

CONUNDRUMS... There are some people who will believe just about anything that anyone may say. Others will not believe anything that anyone may say. The key word is "believe." Belief is a mental orientation whose factual support is optional, at best. The geometric opposite of belief is knowledge. Knowledge is factually corroborated belief, also optional. Both belief and knowledge are true to those who suppose them such. It is all conundrum, riddle, mystery.

REQUISITION

PRIVATE REQUISITION Tuesday, August 29, 2017 By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman LET US ASSUME AS TRUE THE FOLLOWING: TO WHOM MUCH IS GIVEN IS MUCH REQUIRED; TO WHOM LESS IS GIVEN IS LESS REQUIRED; TO WHOM LEAST IS GIVEN IS LEAST REQUIRED; TO WHOM NOTHING IS GIVEN IS NOTHING REQUIRED. [NOW PRIVATELY RANK YOUR REQUISITION* TO/FROM GOD AND MAN] *req·ui·si·tion ˌrekwəˈziSH(ə)n/ noun 1. 1. an official order laying claim to the use of property or materials. "I had to make various requisitions for staff and accommodations" synonyms: order, request, call, application, claim, demand "we have submitted our requisition for additional staff" o o verb 1. 1. demand the use or supply of, especially by official order and for military or public use. "the government had assumed powers to requisition cereal products at fixed prices" synonyms: commandeer, appropriate, take over, take possession of, occupy, seize, confiscate,expropriate "their house was requisitioned by the army"

HURRICANE HARVEY LINKS TEXAS AN SIERRE LEONE

This is an excellent article on the climatological evolution of Hurricane "Harvey" in Africa, (where most hurricanes originate) as part of the same tropical storm system that had last week devastated Sierra Leone, leaving 400 deaths in its mudslides. The article gives "Harvey's" possible man-made (anthropocentric) links as heat-boosters to its potency, possibly derived from climate change, and forces beyond our knowledge. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/08/hurricane-harvey-texas-threat-170826105309081.html

BUFFETED MANKIND

WOE IS BUFFETED MANKIND ! Many amazing facts-factors effect-affect, influence mankind each moment. These are things: known-unknown and seen-unseen, felt -unfelt , heard-unheard, thought-unthought, smelled-unsmelled, tasted-untasted. We humans are all haplessly wedged into this twain. We are lodged between humility and vanity, an evanescent earthly ambiguity of body soul spirit mind. Aristotle has written of our flux: "Such, then, is the proud man; the man who falls short of him is unduly humble, and the man who goes beyond him is vain. Now even these are not thought to be bad (for they are not malicious ), but only mistaken. For the unduly humble man, being worthy of good things, robs himself of what he deserves, and seems to have something bad about himself from the fact that he does not think himself worthy of good things, and seems also not to know himself; else he would have desired the things he was worthy of , since these are good. Yet such people are not thought to be fools, but rather unduly retiring . Such a reputation, however , seems actually to make them worse; for each class of people aims at what corresponds to its worth, and these people stand back even from noble actions and undertakings, deeming themselves unworthy, and from external goods no less. Vain people, on the other hand, are fools and ignorant of themselves, and that manifestly ; for, not being worthy of them, they attempt honorable undertakings, and then are found out; and they adorn themselves with clothing and outward show and such things, and wish their strokes of good fortune to be made public, and speak about them as if they would be honored for them. But undue humility is more opposed to pride than vanity is; for it is both commoner and worse. "Pride , then, is concerned with honor on the grand scale, as has been said." P.994-995, Bk. IV: CH.3, NICOMACHEAN ETHICS by Aristotle (1991) Woeful is a man who is so proudly buffeted, between humility and vanity! Ever uncertain and unsure!

TRUMP IS TRADITIONAL

TRUMP AS MARROW OF TRADITION "Make America great again" is a thinly-coded dog whistle to make America "white again," by reversing the social policies of our first black President, Barack Hussein Obama. This is the inescapable deduction from the actions so far pursued by Donald John Trump, whose agenda is resurgent white supremacy and fascism. That many obscure white supremacists and fascists are very wealthy, as is Trump, upsets their usual stereotypes of being from the ranks of impoverished poor whites! Aside from President Donald Trump 's campaign pronouncements, his appointments of cabinet members, federal judges, ambassadors, and others, as President, support the above racist and fascist thesis of his administration and its advisors. This plot of Trump evokes that of THE MARROW OF TRADITION a classic novel by Charles Waddell Chestnutt that was published @ 1902 to explain the dynamics of the Wilmington , North Carolina "white riots" of 1898, which had unlawfully ousted by violence, murder , arson, the black-run government, burned black-owned: businesses, homes, schools, churches, of that state's then-largest city. The leaders of that coup d'etat were also wealthy white supremacists, whose "fake" scandalous journalism and lying editorials stoked up the base, who frightened the unsuspecting black leaders and citizenry till it was too late to avert the fiery white of fury! President Donald Trump embodies that very "marrow of American historical tradition" by idiom and in fact. No! he is not "other" but he is a typical white, racist, fascist, who is easily found in earlier Presidents.

DEFAULT ARTS PATRON

DEFAULT BLACK ARTS PATRON My wife informs me that Kansas City now has a Black Repertory Theater Company, which has a slate of presentations scheduled for the upcoming 2018 season. I love theater. A love heightened by the Ira Aldridge Theater's offerings at Howard U. in my 1970s' student days, the movement days of rage. One of the Kansas City productions is "A Soldier's Play." I had brought the Negro Ensemble Company's version of that great play to KC in 1984, as its default arts patron. It ran for a week at the Folly Theater. I was way out in front of our city, then, without realizing , nor fearing the outcome; as I was benefited by expiation of recent divorce pains. Life goes on. Plays come back; as I rejoice in my earlier remembrances.

A BALANCED LIFE

Over the course of life, there are as many rewards in having one's way, as there are in not having one's way; and also as much gratifying satisfaction!

LOUISIANA PEDESTRIANS CHARGED WITH OWN VEHICULAR INJURY?

Some legal stuff is hard to fathom until you realize that state prosecutors, legislators, judges, executives, are elected by people who have been duped by racial prejudice and propaganda lies every single day of their white, privileged lives to view blacks as the primary pernicious threats to white privilege and power! Meanwhile, the blacks are as inversely utterly oblivious, due to reciprocal baneful ignorance, of what's going on around them in the past or presently ! http://www.theroot.com/3-young-black-men-were-hit-by-a-motorist-while-walking-1798438564?utm_source=theroot_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2017-08-26

BE YOURSELF

BE YOURSELF! I write everything metaphorically In homage to writers before me. If you cannot follow along easily, please excuse us all respectfully. Muses are our inspiring resources whose waters are limpid and deep. Muses are usually not discernible to those with inclines not so steep! Every gift is acceptable to God Whatever it may be: as are you, being yourself, just as naturally!

CALCULATING SPHERES AND SUCH

I was "outed" earlier today as being completely unworthy of having even the marginally fictive status of any Egyptian scribe, when I read: "The scribe, obsessively attentive to methodology, ('to,' 'tep': methodological example), conducts ('iri': accomplish, effect, calculate) the following operations:" P.483, AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY: THE PHARAONIC PERIOD: 2780-330 B.C., "Calculating the Surface Area of a Hemisphere," by Theophile Obenga (2004). Obsessive adherence to method is self-denial in the extreme and trust! The level of dedication, of devotion required to become so finely honed is most daunting from my point of view, well over 4,000 years later! "Ancient Egyptian mathematicians knew the formula for calculating the surface area of a sphere: A = 4(pi)R^2, and the formula for calculating the volume of a cylinder: V = (pi)R^2 x h, as well as the fact that the ratio between a circle's surface and its diameter is a constant. Needless to say, well ahead of any school of Greek mathematics, they had also established the exact formula for the area of a circle: A = (pi)R^2, reckoning the value of pi to be 3.1605. "Similarly, 2,000 years before the birth of Greek mathematics, the Egyptians also knew the formula for the volume of a pyramid, as demonstrated by Problem No. 14 of the 'Papyrus Moscow,' also known as the 'Papyrus Golenischeff,' currently kept at the Arts Museum in Moscow. The document contains 25 problems, two of them of particular importance, namely, Problem No. 10 (formula for calculating the surface area of a hemisphere) and Problem No. 14 (Formula for calculating the volume of a truncated pyramid)." P. 488, Ibid.

FLARING UP

http://candles.org/candle-science/ I have sometimes wondered why a candle appears to flare up just before it goes out. Too little or too much fuel or air can be the culprit as its combustion engine is not as efficiently operating with too much or too little of either fuel or oxygen. This final wick flare-up in a candle's physico-chemistry is a phenomenon that I dare equate with American politics in Donald Trump's era.

THE MUCH MORE STORE

THE MUCH MORE STORE Saturday, August 26, 2017 By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman Nature moves on planes that are imperceptible to man, which are inside and outside of man. Poets, artists, craftsmen, mathematicians, naturalists, philosophers, musicians, farmers, fishermen, hunters, sailors, preachers, prophets, potentates, or plain people, all agree that there is more to existence than all living—whether it be, man, plant, animal, insect, etc.-- can see, hear, smell, taste, touch, or intuit. There is more, much more. The nebulous nature, name, dominion of this “much more” has thralled, enthralled, thrilled and fulfilled man forever. Not content to enjoy his portion of the “much more,” though, certain men keep on demanding much more. ‘Much more’ keeps on giving, giving as though its store of more is “much more” than mankind can ever conceive. Such earthly demands of, by, from certain men are usually supplied from that much more store, seasonably, reasonably, ever respectfully, of mankind’s limited temporal capacity to receive, conceive, or perceive, this additional store perceptibly, credibly. Much more store has space, time, matter, energy, and much more! Going to market this Saturday or Sunday or you have maybe already gone Friday? Whenever you may have such a need—even if every day---be sure to make all of your heart's desired purchases at the “Much More Store!”

time waits for nothing

TIME WAITS FOR NOTHING Trying to make up for lost sleep may be like trying to catch time. Time is time; better spent usefully than ruefully, pursuing its shadow . Sleep lies within the shade of time . Eyes closed; metabolisms slowed. Time waits for no man, idea, thing. Get up and get busy! Maximize the momentum of mercy given in time!

LIP-PLATES AND LIP-SERVICE

http://www.medicalbag.com/body-modification/pucker-up-lip-plating-still-in-vogue-in-remote-tribal-villages/article/472684/ These lip plates are symbols of beauty in the few cultures where they remain. Similar credibility-plates are common, if invisible, in western culture: law-politics, economics, religion. As this ornament is abhorrent to us, so our similarly deceitful distentions are as abhorrent to others, if unrecognized by us.

SNARED IN ITS OWN TRAP

This forensic finding is as much metaphor as Bible as history as prophesy The H.L. Hunley, the first combat submarine to sink an enemy ship, also instantly killed its own eight-man crew with the powerful explosive torpedo it carried, according to new research from a Duke University Ph.D. in biomedical engineering. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170823140703.htm

GEOMETRY OUR LINK

GEOMETRY: OUR MISSING LINK Geometry outlines understanding. Geometry underlies all philosophy, mathematics, science, art, religion. Geometry is man's most rigorous study, but geometry's study feels more like play. Geometry civilizes, is truthful. In all of your getting, get geometry. You'll get self-knowledge, wisdom, and self-understanding, personally, collectively, cosmically, & divinely. It declares, proposes, proves, step by step , while referring back to the prior propositions' demonstrations. Geometry is our human missing link to freedom that was lost long ago! READ "EUCLID'S ELEMENTS," ALL THIRTEEN BOOKS, PRIVATELY, AS IT HAS ITS SOOTHING INTIMACY. Amen 🙏

RATABLE

RATABLE NOT EQUAL IS NATURAL "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights..." Are all men really created equally? I say not. I say "equality" is illusory, unfair, and, at bottom, inequitable! Equality is inequitable . Ratable is better. All things are not "created" equal, nor are all men equal. There are gargantuan things, large things, medium sized things, small things. Each thing has its own niche. Thus, it is patently unfair to impute or to ascribe tax, duties, responsibilities, to one, better assigned to another. "To whom much is given is much required," say the Gospels in Luke 12:36. Why, then, do many people proceed in defiance of the Word, of Scriptures, contrary to the precept, while claiming to be Christians? Jesus says, he or she loves all the more in accordance with those who have given them or have forgiven them all the more . (Luke 7:36-50); there is a sliding scale, a ratable rationale and a ratable rationing! So "equality" as set forth in the "Declaration of Independence" is dangerously illusory. Ratable is what is real, natural; what is right. The unmasking of the allegorical metaphor of "equality," for such equality is, as both rhetorical and allegorical, is further extended by examining in the Old Testament. Exodus 16: 16-18 says that when the children of Israel gathered with an "omer," some more, some less, according to their needs. They who gathered much had no excess, and those who gathered least, had no lack, being obedient to God's will. https://www.google.com/…/%3fsearch=Exodus+16%253A16-18&vers… Equality as a juridical concept is illusory, and confusing even in the same case, family, church , school, nation . Treat yourself and treat others fairly, equitably, ratably; no cheating, no lying, no conspiring to defy God, neither to defraud man! I need no say that in mathematics, the numbers go on forever. Each one to its own niche in keeping with divine comity, negative to infinite! Ratable means legally "pro rata," or proportionate. It is the "reasonable portion," for which the elders pray.

WAGGING ONE'S OWN TAIL

WAGGING ONE'S OWN TAIL As a general rule, it seems that most formidable black influences have been, and are being, omitted from history, as recorded by most whites and most blacks in America. James Armistead, a Virginia slave and an American colonial double-agent, for example, is not named, to my knowledge, in standard texts as having been the decisive factor in colonies' winning the American Revolution. Armistead had tricked British General, Charles Cornwallis, into surrendering the remaining starving British forces, 8,000 men, to the Americans after the Siege of Yorktown, Virginia, in October 1781, based on Armistead's deliberately false information had trapped them inside of the peninsula surrounded. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Armistead_Lafayette Another example is that of York, the 'servent' of Clark of the "Lewis and Clark Expedition," 1804-06. York is rarely mentioned as the decisive figure in the success of the exploration of the Louisiana Territory, after its purchase from France. The Indians, whom they encountered, all called him "Big Medicine" due to his size, speed, dark hue, woolly hair, hunting skills. They thought York was the leader of the expedition, due to his bison-like resemblance. They gave him a number of wives in his honor and in respect. They also granted safe passage through their land to the small troupe of land surveyors , who were also naturalist explorers. The actual white leaders found it to be expedient to keep quiet and to remain in the background, while noting this favorable treatment of York as very salubrious indeed for the Missouri River-based journey. In my own case, my work as the main student at Webster Groves High School in Missouri who was critical, to the establishment of the Students for Black Awareness and Action in 1968, (unto the present), and its seminal work in instilling biracial unity or black racial pride, I am not in its Webster Hall of Fame. The same thing is true of my work in Butler, Missouri. There the Amen Society, that I established in Court, while serving as the Pastor of the Brooks Chapel AME Church, did great work! This Amen Society of Bates County, I had also led and directed, while practicing law, in Kansas City. Amen Society built and dedicated a bronze statue of an idealized black soldier on the town square, in October 2008. The State of Missouri, later in 2012, built a natural, 40-acre state park. Both statue and park memorialized the historical "Battle of Island Mound," of October 1862, when the First Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry soundly defeated a twice-larger armed force of mounted Confederate irregulars, that were then based on Hog Island in the Ozark River. They were the first black troops to fight (and win!) in the Civil War, two months before the "Emancipation Proclamation" was issued by President Abraham Lincoln, which did not liberate any slaves in Missouri at all! The black troops in "First Kansas," liberated themselves, by escaping from and taking up arms to defeat slavery. My point is that, to my knowledge, the Bates County Museum does not, even as yet, mention my name in regard to this great historical legacy and labor of love, left to it by the black people of Brooks Chapel AME Church and others, who had no knowledge, whatsoever, of the ultimate sacrifices paid by black heroes only eight miles westward, until I brought it to their attention in a sermon one Sunday morning with a vow to pay long-overdue homage to our own valorous dead soldiers! The reader may excuse my own self-indulgence in mentioning my own achievements, with those of James Armistead (Lafayette) and York. But, as my late father, Elvis Mitchell Coleman, has often said : "It's a mighty poor dog that won't wag his own tail!" I am wagging!

WORKING HISTORICAL HYPOTHESES

MY WORKING HISTORICAL HYPOTHESES By hypothesis, I would respectfully assert that among the bases of Western civilization is an amalgam of parts that were absorbed from their association with the black sages of ancient Egypt (Kemet) from whom each acquired: Greeks (science, mathematics, philosophy) and Hebrews (religion and trade). As augmented by others, these tenets have come down to us, as though the purveyors were the actual creators of the knowledge conveyed. While those who were nearest in time and space to this cultural osmosis were not those who were its plagiarists, those who were more distantly dissociated in its expropriation, capitalized upon the opportunity offered by lack of knowledge by the descendants of the Ancient Africans themselves, and rationalization for exploitation! These are my working hypotheses on which I labor and study to sustain.

ANOMALOUS PROPAGATION

Precipitation flying in the upper atmosphere that does not reach the ground is mere anomalous propagation. So too are platitudes and esoteric preachments that are otherworldly or impractical of value to men and women with need now. This basis for this insight was an observation that was noted by me over 30 years ago when I was aloft circling above Montana as a Labor Department lawyer on assignment. It was snowing at 30,000 feet quite heavily, but none was hitting earth.

TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE "CONFESSION"

TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE “CONFESSION” 8/21/2017 By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman I was a witness to the great solar eclipse, earlier today. I nakedly-eyeballed it, while seated alone on my deck. Having heard the incessant media hype about the dire necessity of wearing specially-approved, solar glasses, from every direction, I remained skeptical. Frankly, I had already decided to ride-out this epic solar conjunction, “bareback,” as my older brother, “Buddy”—Elvis Jr.--used to say in another particular context. I looked. I saw it. I did not lose my eyesight, praise be to God—who gives eyesight and sunlight to me, you and others—for, I had not been as utterly risqué about my personal visual prophylaxis as my written bareback “confession” may imply. During the months, weeks, days, hours, leading up to this great cosmic event, I had read. In reading, I thereby informed myself about the nature of solar eclipses: ancient, medieval, modern; African, American, Asian, Indian, European. In my studies, which were casual and gradual, I had not read of any massive blindness besetting, befalling, bedeviling, any class of people, anywhere, at any time. These billions of viewers, surely, had viewed untold prior solar eclipses, without specially-approved glasses, without alternative contrivances, and without injury. I smiled. Later, more convincingly and more recently, Benjamin Franklin, a Founding Father, scientist, ephemeris (almanac) author, diplomat, describes his being surprised by a solar eclipse, while on the deck of a ship, with other passengers. They had all viewed it, without specially-approved solar glasses in the eighteenth century. (Do not know whether Ben Franklin had invented bifocals as yet or not.) I smiled again. Then, I happened to hear a female astrophysicist on National Public Radio say, just the other day, that it would be “perfectly safe” to view the eclipse if it was “in totality;” but when the moon moved, out of totality, we should quickly cover up! So, basically, one must not look directly into a blazing sun. Duh! Right! Who can? Now, I am laughing out loud! The Lord is in his Holy Tabernacle. Let all the Earth keep silent before Him. Amen 🙏

BENJAMIN BANNEKER'S JOURNAL

Benjamin Banneker, whose museum we visited in 2016, near Baltimore, was descended from the Dogon tribe of West Africa, from his grandfather, whose name was "Banaka." Benjamin also predicted solar and lunar eclipses, in his ephemeris (almanac) of the states of Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. It was widely circulated. He died in 1806. Most of his writings were burned up in a mysterious fire on the same day that he was buried. He was earlier a surveyor for the nation's new Capital (DC); approved by Thomas Jefferson. Benjamin Banneker refuted by his own life and work, in famous correspondence several racist racial assertions that Jefferson had written about the innate inferiority of blacks ' intelligence in his book NOTES ON THE STATE OF VIRGINIA "Query XIV." (1785) http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2014/02/06/the-dreams-of-benjamin-banneker/

POWER

POWER Tuesday, August 22, 2017 By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman In a house without power, one thinks about power, which formerly may not have garnered a thought. Power is life. Its absence is death. Power divides life/death. A brutal storm hit Kansas City last night, August 21, 2017, knocking out power to homes in the area, including ours. No cellphones. No internet. No coffee nor hot food. No lights, television, radio. No refrigerator. No microwave. No air condition. Such last occurred in winter 2001, this powerlessness. Then it was an ice storm. Last night, it was rain, wind, thunder, lightning, and flooding. Our lights went out. From my home’s powerlessness, I segue to my people’s perceived powerlessness. My comparative metaphor acquires potency from memory, remembering how in 2001 without heat, in our cold house, our family had ventured out from home in quest of food, heat, news, other people, and power. Happily, we found them all. I had once suggested in a meeting of so-called black “consciousness people,” that power was the sine qua non of black advancement; that power, in all of its many splendors, is that without which, all other endeavors were but baby-food: lacking needed nutritious substance. Arguments were raised against “power” by some of their principal theoreticians, to my utter surprise. I left them to themselves. To me, all persons who are averse to power are mere proponents of powerlessness. Power like truth is neutral energy available to those with will and means to get it.

SOLAR "CONFESSION"

TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE “CONFESSION” 8/21/2017 By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman I was a witness to the great solar eclipse, earlier today. I nakedly-eyeballed it, while seated alone on my deck. Having heard the incessant media hype about the dire necessity of wearing specially-approved, solar glasses, from every direction, I remained skeptical. Frankly, I had already decided to ride-out this epic solar conjunction, “bareback,” as my older brother, “Buddy”—Elvis Jr.--used to say in another particular context. I looked. I saw it. I did not lose my eyesight, praise be to God—who gives eyesight and sunlight to me, you and others—for, I had not been as utterly risqué about my personal visual prophylaxis as my written bareback “confession” may imply. During the months, weeks, days, hours, leading up to this great cosmic event, I had read. In reading, I thereby informed myself about the nature of solar eclipses: ancient, medieval, modern; African, American, Asian, Indian, European. In my studies, which were casual and gradual, I had not read of any massive blindness besetting, befalling, bedeviling, any class of people, anywhere, at any time. These billions of viewers, surely, had viewed untold prior solar eclipses, without specially-approved glasses, without alternative contrivances, and without injury. I smiled. Later, more convincingly and more recently, Benjamin Franklin, a Founding Father, scientist, ephemeris (almanac) author, diplomat, describes his being surprised by a solar eclipse, while on the deck of a ship, with other passengers. They had all viewed it, without specially-approved solar glasses in the eighteenth century. (Do not know whether Ben Franklin had invented bifocals as yet or not.) I smiled again. Then, I happened to hear a female astrophysicist on National Public Radio say, just the other day, that it would be “perfectly safe” to view the eclipse if it was “in totality;” but when the moon moved, out of totality, we should quickly cover up! So, basically, one must not look directly into a blazing sun. Duh! Right! Who can? Now, I am laughing out loud!

ECLIPSIICAL INQUIRIES

http://www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk/eye.html I WONDER IF THE SOLAR ECLIPSE IS THE "WADJET" (THIRD EYE) OF ANCIENT EGYPT, THE THIRD EYE A/K/A "EYE OF HORUS?"

TRUTH TRANSCENDS

TRUTH TRANSCENDS The truth transcends: all race , religion, nationality, personality, period , language, color, hair texture: any lesser classification . Truth is nature in God and in man. Aspects of truth are accuracy, beauty, wisdom, love, and plenty. Rather than ideology, rather than philosophy, rather than law, truth must be restored to its throne, as the template for human behavior.

FEELING UNDERSTANDING

Truth may be more easily felt than understood. Intuition is greater than cognition.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN ANOMALY AND HETERODOXY

AFRICAN-AMERICAN ANOMALY MUST BE DIVINE HETERODOXY Part of the enduring American anomaly, puzzle, riddle, is not just that President Donald Trump would succeed President Barack Obama's two prior terms, electorally--whose differences are stark--but that the United States of America can be a nation, at all, given its heterodoxy. Being founded upon compromise between agricultural interests, and mercantilism interests, which were both codependent upon the bodies and properties of millions of black people over four (4) centuries, who were captured in Africa, then, over oceans shipped to America to bind America's economic dissimilarities into one national identity, was more than unpredictable, it was divine. It matches if it does not surpass any epic ever conceived in any religion! Its magical manifestation in North America was not just objectively unprecedented in history, but was also inconceivable, philosophically. Thus, in our African presence is the mystery of an American hegemony. These facts are foremost of all of American anomalies: all resonant of the African presence in the making, in the maintaining, of American life. Neither singly, nor, co-dependently, without African people's indisputably rich agency in the development of America's globe-leading agriculture, trade, culture, politics, education, business , law, shipping, exploration, invention, nor military, could either North or South, East or West, have progressed, from sea to shining sea! These facts are foremost of all of American anomalies: seminal resonance of the long African presence in the making and in the maintaining of American life.

same pole

http://www.theroot.com/to-be-clear-white-supremacy-is-the-foundation-of-our-c-1797990783?utm_source=theroot_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2017-08-19 Powerful essay that is historically accurate

HOWARD HOMECOMING 1974

HOWARD U. HOMECOMING RECALLED Howard University's many schools and colleges offered talent pools for us to use, freely accessible, in our various student undertakings. One year, 1974, while I was Howard University Homecoming Chairman, architecture students constructed a geodesic dome that engineering students electrified. An accounting student and staff was our treasurer. The art, parade, floats, bands were our Fine Arts students' bailiwicks . Journalism students wrote up and broadcasted our "Coming Home " activities in 1974, etc. And so on. Each part was played by persons with experience, expertise. Looking back , I now know how blessed we were to be so richly ensconced in such talented, conspicuous glory; since its kind doesn't exist away from alma mater, I was shocked to discover, in the outside world with black people, whose interests are often scattered, peeled, randomly.

BOTTOM OF IT ALL

GETTING TO THE BOTTOM OF IT To get to the bottom of something one must dig deeply into its history, its foundation; where its bottom is. In African American heritage, the woeful tendency is to begin with slavery, its American foundation , but not its true African foundation. The American foundation only goes back to the 16th century with the Spanish, Portuguese, and the 17th century foundation with the Dutch, French, English, Danes, Swedes. The African foundation, however, goes back to man, himself, untold tens of thousands of years earlier, when there was a Yellow Nile (now dry) draining from a then-effluvial Sahara Desert in Chad into Nubia (Sudan), where it joined the Blue and White Niles. Along the Nile are to be found the true beginnings at a bottom of African civilization and world civilization, all of which it flowered.

CONFEDERATE STATUARY AS RACIAL INTIMIDATION

"The statues of Jackson and Lee not only symbolize the violence of the ongoing displacements of gentrification; they also initiated and facilitated these changes when they were first put up. Strategically erecting these symbols of the Confederacy at the edges of or atop black and nonwhite immigrant communities provided Charlottesville’s white elite with a means of physically buttressing their ever-fragile hold of white supremacy. To understand this is to understand Charlottesville’s demographic population shifts throughout the 20th and 21st centuries and how the statues physically bisect those gentrifying spaces." WHAT LIES BENEATH THE CONFEDERATE "VICTORY" ICONOGRAPHY, GEOGRAPHICALLY, SOCIOLOGICALLY, HISTORICALLY, IS WHAT IS LEAST DISCUSSED, PUBLICLY, BUT WHAT IS MOST MATERIAL TO THE BATTLE. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2017/06/how_charlottesville_s_confederate_statues_helped_decimate_the_city_s_historically.html

MY ECLIPSE

ECLIPSICALLY AMUSING MYSELF The Moon 🌙 is orbiting 239,000 miles away from Earth 🌏. The Sun ☀️ is orbited by Earth 1 times per year. The sun is 93,000,000 miles away. Every 18 months there is an eclipse on Earth 🌏 between the two: moon and sun with Earth. In it, the moon seems to black the sun and its sunlight from the Earth in whole or in part, depending upon where one is located on the Earth. All three bodies are suspended in space along with other bodies of all kinds and are moving at speeds of all kinds, each being less than the speed of light, somehow, in relation to that Source of their suspension and speeds, and in relation to each other's suspensions, orbits, speed. That same Source that regulates the suspensions and speeds of all bodies, relationally, regulates the 18 month eclipses of Moon, Sun, and Earth, relationally, and us too. Why 18 months? Why 9 months? https://www.nasa.gov/mu…/imagegallery/image_feature_538.html

WHO GOT PLAYED?

Who got played? Donald Trump's voters, backers, and media supporters all have gotten played. They have elected a mad man to be President of the United States of America ! He has delivered zero for them, or for the rest of us! Rather he has only detracted, subtracted from what he found upon arrival at the White House! We are his piggy-bank! His porta-potty, his business platform !

PRAYER LIST

THE PRAYER LIST! The prayer list works, when nothing else will work. I know this truth for myself, because It has worked for me: successfully-repeatedly on time , in time, in line with prayer! I initially learned of it from elders in our church and in my family, Mama in particular! Recently I have again read about divine prayer power in the NARRATIVE OF SOJOURNER TRUTH. She had been told to use it by her mother "Mau Mau Betts," when she and her parents were slaves in upstate New York, before slaves were freed there in 1828. After thinking about it, further, I remembered that all characters in African American history, who had relied upon prayer from objective subjugation, had been delivered from it into a more desirable place. These thoughts occur to me as I reflect upon the state of our nation and of our people, under President Donald Trump. Put him on the prayer list! And put those diabolical people with him on the prayer list as well! Hand them all over to God! Continue to work the work that you were sent here to work, while you do so; while you pray, when you pray, as you pray! Then, watch the power of the Lord come down! This is testimony! This is true! It has happened to me, for me. It has happened to and for many, it can work for you! Whenever you see no other way through, think no other way is through, feel no other way through, then unfurl the prayer list! No other means is better than the power of God, whose mysteries are literally inscrutable; and whose power is incalculable! Too big for me is never too big for God! Never. Put America and its President on the prayer list! Ask God for grace, guidance, power, love as we work-on, and witness yet again the fact of God's glory, power, love for us!

TRUMP'S BLOWN COVER

Any clandestine cover that Donald Trump voters may have found previously in vapid political sophistry is now gone completely! EVEN, HIS JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF HAVE REPUDIATED HIS DEFENSE OF NAZISM, KU KLUX KLANISM. THE HONORABLE THING IS-- RESIGNATION, NOW! http://www.politicususa.com/2017/08/16/entire-military-openly-broken-trump-denounced-racism.html

READING

READING IS ENRICHING Reading but not understanding is discouraging and intimidating. In due course, one will stop reading. That is a very bad move. Your not reading, nor understanding, locks away from you those vast treasures of wisdom , knowledge, literature , experience, information, poetry, or power, that had been purposefully prepared for you or for readers like you. These priceless gems , jewels have been written, read, gathered, organized, synthesized by others, who may be living now or who lived much earlier, perhaps thousands of years earlier, expressly for you to read, to use, enjoy, to be edified by. Rule 1. Read at your own pace. Do not rush through your reading, nor your reasoning. Reasoning works quietly in the background weighing, assaying, what is being read, with your prior knowledge, values, and experiences. Read like you eat or drink or breathe, evenly, regularly. Rule 2. Look up word meanings that you do not know in a good dictionary. English is, relatively speaking, a young language. It is still growing. There are well over 500,000 words in good English dictionaries and the numbers grow! You may have to circle or underline the words, if you are able to gather from context what is meant by it. But, please come back! Make that gem, that jewel, your own property! Rule 3. Understand what you are reading, while you are reading it. This means that you must read for your comprehension! Re-reading increases everyone's compression! This means being able to put into your own words what you have just read, while you are reading it. Then, you will have mastered it! Your own words engage your unique logical, deduction, expression, processes. Like digesting food translates your food into energy that powers every aspect of your mind, body and soul that you must use, you must have, to survive, to grow, thrive, so does reading and understanding for you.

COMMINGLED COSMOLOGIES

Reading in Marcel Griaule's classic, CONVERSATIONS WITH OGOTEMMELI : AN INTRODUCTION TO DOGON RELIGIOUS IDEAS (1975), I was surprised to note a similarity to other cosmologies known to me. First, the symbol of the anvil that is mentioned therein, that was central to the work of the ancestral "nummo" whose primordial descent from heaven instructed men in iron-making, reminded me of our anvil in the symbol in the escutcheon of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Our symbol actually represents the blacksmith shop, that became our African American denomination's first edifice. The blacksmith shop had been purchased by Founder-Bishop Richard Allen with his own money, then it had been had moved to 6th and Lombard Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to serve as our very "own vine and fig tree." I was reminded of Camara Laye's classic African-boy, autobiography, THE DARK CHILD when Ogotemmeli speaks of the serpent that was associated with the symbolic Dogon blacksmith shop. It was, very much like the guardian spirit snake of the dark child's father, owner of a skilled metal shop compound in colonial, Guinea, West Africa. Next, the wise man, Ogotemmeli's Dogon narrative mentions eight founding families. The numeral "eight" evoked THE ENNEAD, 3rd Century African Philosopher, Plotinus' masterpiece ; "ennead" means "eight." His reference to such other references as "median line of the square" in describing the layout of plots of land, reminded me of EUCLID'S ELEMENTS, African American icon, Benjamin Banneker,surveying, astronomy and of speculative freemasonry . P. 44 Most of Ogotemmetili's cosmological allusions were well over my head. I was just happy to be able to "catch as catch can," that which I could, a small smidgen of light !