Monday, April 29, 2019

"GOD" OF ETHIOPIA

"GOD" : CREATED IN ETHIOPIA We usually take God for granted. However, the concept of God, the ubiquity, fact of God is the greatest philosophical achievement of man. Before "God" life was. We have many fossilized remains of fish, plants, animals, insects, dating back eons, some billions of years. "God" is the epitome of existence as postulated by ancient Ethiopian sages, savants, geniuses, who all were men and women descendants of ancient ancestor-star watchers. They sought an explanation for life, for the rhythms of being, based on the concurrence of stars' behavior, above, allied with nature's behavior, below, especially of the Nile river, and allied life activities flowing from its annual gentle alluvial flooding. Working with astronomy, biology, the Ethiopians, and their colonists , Egyptians, conceived geometry, physics, engineering, mathematics and all of the arts and sciences that were bequeathed to mankind, including writing, navigation, agriculture, medicine and religion. But the link to it all was "God" who made man, stars, nature, Nile and placed them together in the land, where all could coexist in peace; so ancient Ethiopia conceived, and brought forth their conception of "God." Their religious rituals were copied by other civilizations; but they acknowledged the Ethiopian source or home of the Gods in their own histories, mythologies, nativity.

Friday, April 26, 2019

RIGHTEOUSNESS SURVIVES

THE 'RIGHTEOUS' HAVE SURVIVED LITERAL 'HELL' None but the righteous could have survived African "Maafa,"---capture, transshipment, lifelong slavery, new languages, no family to love or to be loved by, brutal living conditions, millions of deaths, pre-sun-up-to-past-sundown working hours, acculturation into "white" superiority, rape anytime, breeding farms, children/ spouses/parents/ siblings sold at will, treated and viewed as chattel; illiteracy and innumeracy--in the actual feral, literal, "HELL" of North America, where the righteous have wiggled, squirmed, nearly shaken themselves free of the wretched detritus of soulless, race-based, cretin, oppression and deprivations; but who, somehow, continue to love their tormentors as brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, friends and strangers! No fiction, no myth, no allegory, no account in recorded human history has ever seen its like! Not Dante's "Inferno," not Milton's "Paradise Lost", not John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," not the Bible, not the Koran, not the Torah, not the Pyramid Texts nor Coffin Texts; not the sacred Hindu texts, not Chaldean prophets, not Asian mystics Buddha, Confucius, none but the righteous are made of such divine, sterner stuff to be able to demonstrate to all the rest of mankind, that through the sacrifice of his first people there is power to give, to take away, to enliven, to kill, to raise up anew from the dead, to gather together again, to scatter, asunder to reduce the former, to raise the latter, only God.

Wednesday, April 24, 2019

EGYPTIAN COLONIES. DIODORUS

"Now the Egyptians say that after these events a great number of colonies were spread from Egypt over all the inhabited world. To Babylon, for instance, colonists were led by Belus, who was held to be the son of Poseidon and Libya; and after establishing himself on the Euphrates River he appointed priests, called Chaldaeans by the Babylonians, who were exempt from taxation and free from every kind of service to the state, as are the priests of Egypt; and they also make observations of the stars , following the example of Egyptian priests, physicists and astrologers. They say also that those who set forth with Danaus, likewise from Egypt, settled what is practically the oldest city of Greece, Argos, and that the nation of Colchi in Pontus and that of the Jews, which lies between Arabia and Syria, were founded as colonies by certain emigrants from their country; and this is why it is a long established institution among these two peoples to circumcise their male children, the custom having been brought over from Egypt. Even the Athenians, they say, are colonies from Sais in Egypt, and they undertook to offer further proofs of such a relationship; for the Athenians are the only Greeks who call their city 'Asty', a name brought over from the city Asty in Egypt. Furthermore, their body politic had the same classification and division of the people as found in Egypt, where the citizens have divided into three orders: the first Athenian class consisted of the 'eupatrids', as they were called, being those who were such as had received the best education and were held worthy of the highest honor, as is the case with the priests of Egypt; the second was that of the 'geomoroi', who were expected to possess arms and to serve in defense of the state, like those in Egypt who are known as husbandmen and supply the warriors; and the last class was reckoned to be that of the 'demiurgoi,' who practice the mechanical arts and render only the most menial services to the state, this class among the Egyptians having a similar function. "Moreover, certain of the rulers of Athens were originally Egyptians, they say. Petes, for instance, the father of that Menestheus who took part in the expedition against Troy, having clearly been an Egyptian, later claimed citizenship at Athens and the kingship ... "29. In the same way Erechtheus also, who was by birth an Egyptian, became king of Athens, and in proof of this they offer the following considerations. Once when there was a great drought , as is generally agreed, which extended over practically all the inhabited earth except Egypt because of the peculiar character of that country, and there followed a destruction of crops and men in great numbers, Erechtheus, through his racial connection with Egypt, brought from there to Athens, a great supply of grain, and in return, those who had enjoyed this aid made their benefactor king. After he had secured the throne he instituted the initiatory rites of Demeter in Eleusis and established the mysteries, transferring the ritual from Egypt. And the tradition that had an advent of the goddess into Attica also took place at that time is reasonable, since it was then that the fruits which are named after her were brought to Athens , and this is why it is thought that the discovery of the seed had been made again, as though Demeter had bestowed the gift. And the Athenians on their part agree that it was in the reign of Erechtheus, when the lack of rain had wiped out the crops, that Demeter came to them with the gifts of grain. Furthermore, the initiatory rites and mysteries of the goddess was instituted in Eleusis at the time. And their sacrifices as well as their ancient ceremonies are observed by the Athenians in the same way as by the Egyptians; for Eupolidae were derived from the priests of Egypt and the Ceryces from the 'pastophoroi.' They are also the only Greeks who swear by Isis, and they closely resemble the Egyptians in both their appearance and manners. " P.91-97, Book I. LIBRARY OF HISTORY by Diodorus Siculus (1933, 1998)

AMERICA

HOW WHY WHEREFORE AMERICA ? America's leading legal minds that convened in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 were brought there to repair the impoverished national government, whose taxes were few, voluntarily paid to it by the States, and whose powers were commensurate with its tax revenues or even less. This was the state of affairs that prompted the drafting of the Constitution and the concomitant scuttling of the too feeble "Articles of Confederation." Unfortunately, the nation's material income was derived from a slave labor base in the North by banking, shipping , insuring , supplying, and manufacturing. In the South it was raising cash crops: tobacco, rice , indigo, sugar , lumber, food, meat. The North and South were to each other as the head is to the body. As such, their new government documents came to reflect their social, economic, political, cultural, realities of "Enlightenment Era" white men with power to dictate the decisions, directions, future of their "new world" while competing with Europe, England, France, Spain, and, of course, the indigenous natives for the same opportunity of governing the vast wide acreage from purple mountains' majesty, amber waves of grain, from sea to shining sea. The rights of slaves were not even considered, except to the extent that they could augment the power of white men who ruled over them. All of America's white competitors were slaveholders in 1787. For it was free black-slave labor's, low maintenance costs, durability, profitability, that produced economic marvels in the Caribbean , Central, South America, North America . At the same time that the economic juggernauts were rushing forward, so, too, was its philosophical and cultural correctives, known as the "Declaration of Independence" in the United States and the "Rights of Man" in France. Both seminal documents had been written by an English itinerant revolutionary, named Thomas Paine. His words, fervor, his vision, fueled the notions that all men "are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Thomas Paine's powerful poetic prose laved white slave-economics in theology. So while the white men were busily setting rules of spoliation among themselves, in 1787, during which , at best, they may have genuflected at Thomas Paine's stirring rhetoric that had imbued a spirit of national brotherhood, that was convening them, it was only an afterthought. There was too much money to be made. There was too much land to be confiscated, cultivated; platted, taxed, incorporated into the nation. Every law, feature, everything, was designed to secure the perpetual empowerment of the ruling white men for the good of the nation, and for the suppression of civil rights of black men to the same extent. The slaves, free blacks, were all the while carefully watching, listening, communicating, plotting, planning as well; especially so were former slaves organizing and preparing. The currents of economic power in America have always had to reckon with, contend with, underlying counter currents to its own national creed. Those who most upheld the national creed were the blacks who were most abused by its breach, by its violations in law courts, in banking, in business, in education, in social institutions, in all public accommodations. The wars waged by these competing oceans' currents resulted in a Civil War and a Civil Rights War; now a backlash! The problem with the "backlash" is that it had and it has no moral core, except the law of the wolf, vultures, skunk, rabid dogs, and wolf packs. The "backlash" lacks any intellectual rigor, being ethically and morally moribund. It is fortified by lies, about history, religion, science, sociology, and it is enforced by physical racial violence in its character, conception and especially in its execution. Except for the Confederate States of America's secession documents, the "Dred Scott" decision, it lack textual and doctrinal consistency. Dating back to the all-too-brief "Reconstruction", 1865-1873, with the fleecing of the Freedmen's Savings Bank by Wall Street and Congress, following closely behind was the "Betrayal of the Negro," the blacks, and of the American Constitution in the Hayes-Tilden Comprises of 1876-1877. It rolled into and through the Jim Crow Era, 1883-1954 (the 'Civil Rights Cases' to 'Brown v. Board'; through Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy, "Watergate" (1968-1976); Ronald Reagan's "Revolution," tepid but well-intended Jimmy Carter; both Bushes' staying the course of white privilege with occasional gestures toward the blacks; through Barack Obama historical black but obstructed and too-timid toward blacks ruling philosophy, and now to Donald Trump's white supremacy ascendency, we blacks were and have been the ones who were true to the creed, the course the hallowed American current. We were true to it, because it is true to us philosophically, pragmatically. We yet wonder how those who claim one thing could do the opposite thing, consciously, remorselessly to fellow Americans? Maybe these few ideas may explain how, why, wherefore they still do!

Tuesday, April 23, 2019

CAN SATAN REPENT

CAN SATAN REPENT? A 9-year old girl asked my friend, who is a lawyer and pastor, "Can Satan repent?" That simple inquiry is disarming in multiple respects. First that she was just 9; second that she inquired; third, that the question could ever arise; fourth, to whom the piercing philosophical, eschatological question was put . I would have replied that "God" who is a spirit, created Satan, who, like "God," is also a spirit, just like everything existing God created in the spirit, including imagination of mankind, instincts of nature and laws. Thus, God has absolutely no competition. Even Satan, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, Osiris, Jah Shango, are subordinate to God, as is every man, woman, child, thing, element, idea, energy, light beam. Therefore, one can simply say "no" to a 9 year old girl and move on to something else. That would not, however, be true to the spirit of truth and integrity and morality and humility required of those of us who purport to have a relationship with God. Did not Jacob wrestle with the angel and subdue it by pulling the sinew by its thigh? Do not the scriptures say that God created good and evil and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust, the good and the bad? Can not God use a jackass to teach a lesson to men, a whale, lions' den? It so, God can use a 9-year old girl! Therefore although that little angel who asked that question does not know me, she has spoken through my friend, and her pastor, directly unto me! Therefore, the absolute truth is that the answer to her question "Can Satan repent," is can you repent? Can I repent? Can we? Yes, he can like us! That is because Satan is no worse nor better than mankind, than the "prodigal son," who wasted away his wealth on wine women and song, in strange lands, But who found himself eating in a hog trough, came to his senses, and repented of his waywardness, And returned home to his father's house, that he had left. His father who espied him afar off, welcomed him home! Father killed the fatted calf, put a golden ring on his finger, put a robe o his back, sandals on his feet, and called his entire household to come and rejoice with him that his son that was "lost had now been found." But, his brother who stayed home, was envious of the lavish attention given by the lord of the manor to his brother as a reward for his dissolute waywardness. Ad their father chided him for it later. I don't know if this reply will help the inquiring child but it certainly helped me, greatly even more after adding prodigal! "Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Amen! Matthew 19:14 King James Version (KJV) 14 But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. King James Version (KJV) Public Domain

Monday, April 22, 2019

"REPULSIVE WHITE MEN"

"There must be something in the appearance of white men, frightfully repulsive to the unsophisticated natives of Africa; for, on entering villages previously unvisited by Europeans, if we met a child coming quietly and unsuspectingly towards us, the moment he raised his eyes, and saw the men in 'bags,' he would take to his heels in an agony of terror, such as we might feel if we met a live Egyptian mummy at the door of the British Museum. Alarmed by the child's wild cries, the mother rushes out of her hut, but darts back again at the first glimpse of the same fearful apparition . Dogs turn tail, and scour off in dismay; hens, abandoning their chickens, fly screaming to the tops of the houses. The so lately peaceful village becomes a scene of confusion and hubbub, until calmed by the laughing assurance of our men, that white people do not eat black folks; a joke having often times greater influence in Africa than solemn assertion." P.152, "Chicova," NARRATIVE OF AN EXPEDITION TO THE ZAMBESI by David and Charles Livingstone (1865)

DILIGENT RECORD KEEPING

DILIGENT RECORD-KEEPING Record-keeping is a form of faithful stewarding, being self-rewarding . However mundane the nature or the subject matter of the records that are being systematically kept, their inherent value, their portable profitability as evidence, as a true reference is not always recognized. I kept records of push-ups done during summers before football . I kept records of my expenditures in summer jobs to calculate how much I must save and how little I could spend to buy my first car. Of course, I kept notes in school which helped me to learn the skills that were being taught, information disseminated, most importantly, in test review/take preparation time. Records are how key knowledge is passed on. They hold organizations together as minutes, laws, actions , expenditures, income, debts, and so forth. Records are found in and kept in books, are often the reason for various books, papyrus, stele, parchments, scrolls, other formats. Most record-keeping is now online. It is conceivable that what we now write may be retrievable by future generations of citizens, relatives, authorities, prospective employers. "Amanuensis" is one name for an exalted record keeper or scribe. Secretary ('secret'--ary) is another name for this very important office. We would all do well, do better, by becoming diligent record-keepers.

Sunday, April 21, 2019

DOUGLASS;; AMERICAN

"It is not without a feeling of pride, dear reader, that I present you with this book. The son of a self-emancipated bond-woman, I feel joy in introducing to you my brother, who has rent his own bonds, and who, in his every relation--as a public man, as a husband , and as a father--is such as does honor to the land which gave him birth. I shall place this book in the hands of the only child spared me, bidding him to strive and emulate its noble example. You may do likewise . It is an American book for Americans, in the fullest sense of the idea. It shows that the worst of our institutions, in its worst aspect, cannot keep down energy, truthfulness, and earnest struggle for the right. It proves the justice and practicability of Immediate Emancipation. It shows that ,'any man in our land, 'no matter in what battle his liberty has been cloven down,****no matter what complexion an Indian or an African sun has burned upon him ,' not only may 'stand forth disenthralled,' but also may stand up, a candidate for the highest suffrage of a great people.--the tribute of their greatest, hearty admiration. Reader , 'Vale!' James McCune Smith, New York, May 23, 1855." P. 137, "Introduction," MY BONDAGE AND MY FREEDOM by Frederick Douglass (1855)

JESUS CHRIST 'TOUCHING'

JESUS CHRIST'S "TOUCHING" Jesus Christ did not write one word of the Bible despite being the main figure of the New Testament, if not of the entire Christian religion, that he called "the way" in distinction to other forms then extant in mankind. Writers today are revered, as were rightly scribes of old, who gave us hieroglyphics, hieratic and demotic, Pyramid Texts, more, writings in three forms in Kemet and in Kush. The fact that Jesus himself left no writings but testimony, "pernicious superstition" Romans called it for centuries, while purging, drowning, beheading, crucifying, its votaries, believers, in Rome, Palestine, and in Africa, particularly; before later adoption of the way of Jesus Christ as their own, goes to show that one need not do anything singularly nor even entirely successfully in order to be remembered, even revered! The key is for one to touch the lives of others be they alive, dead, or yet unborn. But 'touch' means with the sensible awareness of their divine symmetry, the cosmic equivalency, infinite companionship before God, the Creator and Recycler of all life. Answering the crucial question of 'I' is the sine qua non of all ministries. Jesus posits, answers, proves his mastery of "I" by having a life after death, not only to his disciples; not only to African American slaves and their descendants, but to me, who proudly acclaims African descent! Not to me only, but unto all who call in confidence, in faith, Jesus heals; he strengthens, emboldens equips, befriends, and loves; by 'touching!' 'Touching' the heart the receptacle of life: the keeper of the pulsating, continuously flowing of blood-streams that are the sustainers of life: material, nutritional, spiritual. Life of man is the canonic, canopic canister that the 'touch' of Jesus has so consecrated in spirituals, praise, prayers, proverbs, protests!

Thursday, April 18, 2019

KNOWING THE TRUTH RESISTING LIES

KNOWING THE TRUTH IS RESISTING LIES The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 tried, in vain, to deputize all individual American white men and Free States into becoming racist slave-catchers, nationally, whatever their politics, after that Act of 1793, and provisions in the Constitution, could not stem the outflows of tens of thousands of black peoples' escaping captivity. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act also failed to do its job, like that of 1793 and the Constitution before it, as some white men like Gerrit Smith, John Brown, Levi Coffin, James Montgomery, in the South and in the North, resisted the usurping of their personal freedoms, politics, religious values by the federal law to recover slaveholders' "property." The "deputizing" of white men and States after the Civil War was 'lost', had to become more subtle, had to be more covert, to preserve white supremacy. It had to operate not openly, like white terrorism; but quietly upon hearts and minds, by lies and disinformation campaigns about black inferiority, in families, in pulpits and in schools. It is, it was, the "curse of Ham" in the Bible . It is, it was, the "lost cause" lament of "Gone With the Wind," of white men caricaturing blacks in their burlesque minstrel shows. It is, it was "Birth of a Nation" and the birth of the motion picture industry, with its sneering omissions of black people in history, local , state, national, international, ancient, and on stage in heroic roles, that was led by white women organizations. Through historical, educational and religious deputizing of our nation by lies, distortions, disinformation, the quieter approach succeeded in deputizing not only whites, but in deputizing many blacks, including black civil rights organizations, into believing and into accepting the myth of white supremacy and black inferiority; so much, they sought to "integrate into its burning house" of lies, as Dr. Martin Luther King said. Knowing the truth is resisting lies! 

BOOKMOBILE

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/…/long-overdue-the-bookmobi…/ My first library was a bookmobile in J.M. Turner grade school near St. Louis, Missouri, in Meacham Park. I was in 2nd grade.

Wednesday, April 17, 2019

THE "YOZONE"

WELCOME TO THE "YOZONE" All is energy. You. Me. We. Air. Water. Light. Food. Dirt. Metal. Minerals. Earth, Moon. Sky. Stars. All is energy. Everything is energy. And, yet, deeper still, everything is everything. Life and death are both, therefore, our energetic illustration that we are blessed to perceive and to conceive to give credibility to all. I had intuited this "all is energy" proposition today, April 17, 2019, as I awoke from last night's slumber. The term "yozone" (offshoot of 'ozone') had come to me as a short descriptor term for describing a person's idea-energy being made manifest--materializing--among us humans as an active motive power. Before I shared this naked idea with friends, I thought that I would seek verification, reification, edification, online (where else?). There is such. An article entitled "The Illusion of Reality : The Scientific Proof That Everything is Energy and Reality Isn't Real" by Kate Montana leaped right at me online, as I googled: https://www.consciouslifestylemag.com/everything-is-energy…/ Reading her article I thought of the late Donnie Hathaway's "Everything Is Everything" as affirming in his rhythmic , soulful, music the same spirit what Kate Montana writes of. I also hear strains of George Clinton, a/k/a "Dr. Funkenstein" pumping the funk in the mystical background with the Fisk Jubilee Singers, Aretha Franklin, and the ancient pharaohs pyramid builders. I also feel hear Mama, Daddy, Aunt Mary, Uncle Otie, and the old folks at home, back home, who all knew that there is nothing else but God! I then read "Everything is Energy and Science Has Proved It--Here's How" online that is unsigned by anyone . It confirmed the above noted observations, asseverations. https://www.learning-mind.com/everything-is-energy/ As the ozone layer is said to be an upper atmospheric condition that protects our biome from harmful items, gasses, radiation, from outer space , "yozone" is your contact to what lies beyond earth's ozone, an infinite divinity of which we each are, infinitesimal micro-miniature ideals. Amen.

Tuesday, April 16, 2019

JACKIE ROBINSON

JACKIE ROBINSON # 42 Iconic Jackie Roosevelt Robinson, #42, was playing short stop for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues, when he was signed away by Branch Rickey to play for the National League Brooklyn Dodgers. Too often his antecedents are not considered in the rush to revere the man, the UCLA college-educated, highly spirited, race-conscious black man, who did not "take no mess," before getting to the major leagues, but he took plenty there! These thoughts occurred to me while listening to Hank Aaron's interview on Sunday night baseball. Aaron also said that when he came up to the majors, that he used to hold the bat with his strong hand on the bottom and the weakest left hand on the top. I was encouraged by his batting confession, since I used to hold the bat the same way, and hit for more power too! Like Hank, no one taught me differently. Salutations to Jackie , who started passive resistance to systematic racism 8 years before the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. @ 1947.

Monday, April 15, 2019

NIPSEY HUSSLE SYNERGY

NIPSEY HUSSLE'S SYNERGY Bees swarm, Bison herd, and wild geese gather, but many black men scatter. No synergy, no energy like bees, Bison, geese, in black men. Synergistic bonds among brothers have been long broken by folk lies, fears , violence, ignorance, to keep them in a state of idle dependency. The precipitation (money) that fell in the upper atmosphere of African American society, rarely ever hit the man on the ground, the lowest levels of African American society, wherein the street gangs, thugs , guns, criminals and hip-hop music all pulsated, activated, instigated. Then, one bright day out-stepped a rapper-avatar, a paragon, example, martyr, from Eritrean and African American descent in LA , CA, in Crenshaw a marathon-man named Nipsey Hussle (Ermias Asghedom). He culminated in a link between the streets, precipitation, mixing: black synergy of love, creativity, audacity. He was shot and killed by another street thug about who knows what!anyway, Nipsey Hussle left in his wake a sterling cache of synergy for the brothers and sisters to see how to blow up large by being true!

MISSISSIPPI FEDERAL JUDGE CARLTON REEVES

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlvzpFVDBZw&feature=share

Sunday, April 14, 2019

PALM SUNDAY

PALM SUNDAY 1993 AND ME No heavy burden can be borne alone. Help is needed to bear heavy burdens. Help must come from someone, help must come from something . Burdens are burdensome. They hurt, strain, threaten life, health and strength. I yielded my burdens to the Lord Jesus Christ on Palm Sunday 1993 at Allen Chapel AME Church in Kansas City, Missouri. Pastor Alvin L. Smith was reading the invitation from the 139th. "Oh Lord! Thou has searched me and known me." I felt something twitching. He carried on. "Thou knowest my down sitting and my uprising. Thou understand my thoughts far off. ...thou art acquainted with all of my ways." Lord have mercy! The next thing that I knew I was walking--no I was floating--down the aisle towards the altar, scarcely hearing anything but my heart beat; breathing bated breaths. I accepted the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as my personal savior! And what a relief it was to share my burdens with the Lord! It was good that I did it when I did it and where I did it , for that act of attrition, defined my life ambition. It also rescued me from the perdition of ambiguity in my philosophical bearing and theological orientation. Thank God for Jesus Christ! Thank God for the Holy Spirit! Thank God for the Holy Bible and Psalm 139!   Edit 0. O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. 0. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. 0. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. 0. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. 0. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. 0. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. 0. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? 0. If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. 0. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; 0. Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. 0. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. 0. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee. 0. For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. 0. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. 0. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. 0. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. 0. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! 0. If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee. 0. Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody men. 0. For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain. 0. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? 0. I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies. 0. Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: 0. And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Saturday, April 13, 2019

WHAT FOR THE BLACKS?

WHAT IS TO BE DONE FOR BLACKS? They would have used us like a condom and thrown us away to Liberia, Haiti, Central America. But our forbears said "Hell no we won't go!" (Which too few of us later said about going to the War in Vietnam!) We later sought to self-emigrate to Haiti, to Liberia; briefly to Florida, Canada and to Mexico to escape hellish "white" legal, commercial, historical, terrorism, repression, inopportunity, in the United States. "What was to be done with the Negro?" was the central issue that had troubled the nation from its beginning in war with England. We had helped America to win its so-called "revolution" that mocked the true meaning of the term; as we remained slaves, despite our help! We had helped America to win the War of 1812 with England. In it, our colored sailors fought in the Battle of Lake Erie that we won, thereby learning of the Canadian sanctuary. Hereafter, our people would seek to follow the North Star in flights away from thralldom. In our flights, we encountered allies among the Quakers and other whites to assist in our journey. We then fashioned our legendary UNDERGROUND RAILROAD from these contacts, experiences, and abettors, which were recorded by William Still in his epic compendium of that name. In the Civil War, originally "a white man's war" from which blacks had been purposefully excluded from fighting-in by BOTH SIDES (Corps d'Afrique in Louisiana in the South), President Abraham Lincoln after chastening General Rufus Saxton in South Carolina, and after reversing General Jon C. Fremont's Order in Missouri, then capitulated to their irreducible logic to capitalize upon black troops for fighting, scouting, spying, fortifications and service; and Congress and Lincoln did the same respecting the "Contraband" --escaped slaves--who entered Union Lines for every other manner of service, except leadership and strategy, which remained entirely in white hands. A few black men were commissioned as Chaplains and Physicians, however, these were not in line command positions. Elsewhere on the Kansas-Missouri border, where a "Border War" had been fought since the Kansas-Nebraska Compromise of 1854, the First Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry (created by Kansas' U.S. Senator James Lane with Lincoln's tacit consent) had already fought and won the "Battle of Island Mound" on October 29, 1862, inspiring Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. We blacks were the decisive difference in the war . We subtracted from the South, while adding to the North at the same time, even as many slaves remained on the plantations doing what they had always done before. "What is to be done with the Negro" given this history, has now morphed into "what can be done for the Negro in the form of reparations for historic 'white' deprivations?"since great political victories are not as sufficient as before in the Reconstruction era. Maybe Donald Trump will realize that the best way to win a second term is to pay reparations to the blacks in 2019 and in 2020! They vote! We vote! Mexicans, Guatemalans, do not, cannot vote, in American democracy! 

Friday, April 12, 2019

MORAL BEHAVIORS

MORAL BEHAVIORS ARE NEEDED Evidencing one's morality, ethical character, separates civilized man from barbaric man. Morality, ethical character, consists of love, justice, fairness, cleanliness, faithfulness, balance, and orderliness. These attributes are personal, universal. Ethical character is not intellectual. Learned men have been unethical . Ethical character is not physical. Athletes have been unethical also. Ethical character is not financial. Rich men have been unethical. Ethical character is not political. Politicians have been unethical. Ethical character is not religious. Religious men have been unethical. Ethical character is not being legal. Legal men have been unethical. Ethical character is not being social. Social men have been unethical. Ethical character is above, beyond, all of man's earthly attainments, being divine. Ethical character, morality, is derived from God, as exhibited in nature, as embedded in the spirit of mankind. Mankind embodies all else being exemplary. But living without morality, without ethical character in mankind is worst than wild beasts or microbes who, at least, are guided by innate instincts. Their innate instincts are stronger than are men's instincts; deficits in mankind are satisfied by ethics, morality, personal character. Like the intellectual, the physical, the financial, the political, the religious , the legal, the social, the ethical, the moral development of character requires concerted effort in men, personally and collectively. It must flood continuously, forever. Righteousness upon earth must be systematized, ritualized, socialized to the same degree that evil now is. The whole of mankind's civilization springs from morality: intellectual , physical, financial, political, legal, religious, social . All "civilization" is in miniature is each life that lives, as each drop of water, each clod of dirt, each element, each photon, atom, tree ring, cloud, rock is endowed with the character of the divine creator in miniature, in microcosm, in geometric relation. It is incumbent of each of us to be moral, ethical, in thought, word, deed, whether we are alone or are together. As children can be taught anything from savagery to divinity, young children become what they sense in you, day to day; so, your example is primary in developing them into ethical, moral characters. Morality can defeat hypocrisy and has done so in the past. While it is true that wickedness and evil now hold sway on the earth , the whole ethical, moral literature of mankind shows that this barbaric condition is merely transient, only temporary, passing through. Goodness may and can reign again upon the earth over immorality or depravity, when each man recognizes their divine duty to be, teach, moral behaviors.

Thursday, April 11, 2019

EMPIRICISM PLUS , MY PHILOSOPHY

em·pir·i·cism /É™mˈpirəˌsizÉ™m/ noun 1. the theory that all knowledge is derived from sense-experience. Stimulated by the rise of experimental science, it developed in the 17th and 18th centuries, expounded in particular by John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume. EMPIRICISM approximates my personal philosophy, which is congruent and fluent with sundry aspect of epistemology and ancient theology. But, I am informed by others' considerate conceptions of philosophy, epistemology, theology, and of me.

grizzled wizened me

Grizzled wizened and grateful to be here contributing to life! I thank you Lord, thank you Jesus, thank you Heavenly Father !

Wednesday, April 10, 2019

CLAIMS COURT AND REPARATIONS

UNITED STATES CLAIMS COURT AND BLACK REPARATIONS Most people are unaware that the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled against a class action lawsuit brought to compensate the 1921 Tulsa, Oklahoma , "Black Wall Street" aerial bombing victims, estates, families, who were killed in the hundreds, mass-buried; whose homes, businesses all burnt down. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed an Oklahoma district court ruling that "laches" or undue delay had deprived that court of subject matter jurisdiction over the case. The plaintiffs applied to the United States Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari , which it declined to give in 1994. So ended that controversy. Plaintiffs had been represented by a formidable group of superstars, like the late Johnnie E. Cochran, Jr., Willie E. Gary, and a bevy of others. Since that time, it has occurred to me that a suit in the United States Court of Claims is a more favorable venue than any federal court, since it was established by Congress to redress claims against the United States , particularly. John Mercer Langston, Esq., had successfully sued in the Court of Claims in the 1880s, when his pay was wrongly reduced in office, by Congress , while he was serving as U. S. Consul to Haiti. I read of John M. Langston's success in his great historical autobiography. He was the founder of Howard University Law School in 1869, my own alma mater. I am also still licensed to practice in the Court of Claims, but have never filed a case within it. I reason that if there is no statute of limitations for rape nor murder, nor should "laches" bar reparations . Equitable retribution issues for African Americans must ever be pushed, pursued, relentlessly, on every level of government, charity, private business, everywhere and never abandoned as too radical! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/…/United_States_Court_of_Federal…

Tuesday, April 9, 2019

AFRICAN AMERICAN 'PASSOVER'

This is the day that African Americans literally "passed over" from slavery to freedom, April 9, 1865; Robert E. Lee surrounded his army to Ulysses S. Grant. Beginning in April 2000, my three churches all celebrated "African American Passover" ritually, spiritually, historically for the end of 76 years of American chattel slavery in glory, by the grace of God, by the ingenuity of our African American ancestors and their Union allies. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/robert-e-lee-surrenders?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2019-0409-04092019&om_rid=d9c2dc23386f312da18c0863b16bef54e8ba59f7cf4e3bc26c0128a818dbaf9c&om_mid=600518411&kx_EmailCampaignID=28870&kx_EmailCampaignName=email-hist-tdih-2019-0409-04092019&kx_EmailRecipientID=d9c2dc23386f312da18c0863b16bef54e8ba59f7cf4e3bc26c0128a818dbaf9c&fbclid=IwAR1aPxpsa7WfrX_HoNrNEAEa_8MO8OZlB0b5geKGne9YQPScERhGsEI2fbo

Monday, April 8, 2019

RETURN TO PERFECTION STANDARD

WE NEED TO RETURN TO THE "PERFECTION STANDARD" Perhaps the "perfection standard" is too high, for African Americans! It is Jesus' standard, Matthew 5:48. It was the ancient Ethiopians' and Egyptians' standard for thousands of years before the birth of Christ, as evinced in their philosophy, astronomy, geometry, medicine, pyramids, mathematics, writing, literature, stele, temples, skilled workmanship, agriculture, navigation, ship-building, etc.; their enduring archaeological reputations among all nations of earth. This is attested by their megaliths, is attested by ancient Greek authors of the classics: Homer, Herodotus, Plato. Perfection standard is too high? Perhaps the "perfection standard NOT too high. Even our recent ancestors said "Always do you best! Be twice as good as the white man, at least, to get the same as he gets by just being white." Maybe your forbears did not say that. Mine did say it! Lawyers' have "the reasonable man" standard which is flexible. The "perfection standard" is not flexible; no room for mischief!

Sunday, April 7, 2019

LIFE REPRISES LIFE

LIFE REPRISES LIFE FOREVER Life reprises life in similitude . Each day blends with, replicates, past days in time, blends with, replicates each future month, year, century, epoch, era, age in time. Reprise is not "replace". Each one, each life, each thing, is unique; is singular. "Reprise" , rather, recurs, renews, resumes past essentials, past uniqueness, notwithstanding. Jesus said "I am with you always, even until the end of time". He spoke truth. So will we, all life, be until the end of time, as all have been from the "beginning" of time. Isaiah 41:10 (GNTA) Do not be afraid - I am with you! I am your God - let nothing terrify you! I will make you strong and help you; I will protect you and save you. Matthew 28:19-20 King James Version (KJV) 19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. King James Version (KJV) Public Domain Life reprises life in similitude forever. For life is life in continuum forever, by the grace of God. Amen.

ROOTS OF AFRICAN AMERICAN SLAVERY

The early, 1619, Jamestown, Virginia , Africans were not "slaves." They were indentured servants until 1660s, when Bacon's Rebellion (an unsuccessful revolt that was led by Nathaniel Bacon lof black and white indentured servants, who wanted some of the Indian land that was exclusively held by their colonial rulers ) was put down. Then, a Virginia court case decreed that an indentured servant of African descent (Punch) could be enslaved for life as a penalty for running away from his black master, Anthony Johnson, the plaintiff, himself formerly indentured. The colonial rulers combined both facts, the rebellion and court decree to create black chattel slavery and its infrastructure of lies, fake history in justification of racism. Before this there was no actual racism anywhere, but there was greed, avarice, duplicity cupidity, everywhere, even Africa, whose chieftains sold to Europeans and to Arabs, in exchange for goods: guns, powder, liquor.Racism did not stop at Jim Crow nor start at Jim Crow. It began in 1660s' Virginia and Maryland.

Saturday, April 6, 2019

ALLEGORY ON ANCIENT EGYPT

Ancient Egypt peaked in the 4th-5th Dynasties, its pyramid age, the height of its mathematical, engineering, social and philosophical wisdom. It then coasted. It rested for thousands of years, being sure of itself. While it repined, its supremacy was flowing downhill to the Mediterranean from the apex of science and philosophy, like the hare's big lead in Aesop's fable. Like the plodding tortoise in Aesop's fable other nations took advantage of Egyptian rest to catch up with the African nation in their new version of parallel science, math, and philosophy. When Africans awakened they discovered that they had not only been stripped of global supremacy, but were now chattel slaves, enchained in mental, physical, spiritual, social slavery: beholden to tortoises from former days. Aesop, an African sage, who was also himself a literary slave in Greece, looked, lamented and spoke in metaphors for the blessed in future times who could decode his allegorical use of animals and nature. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tortoise_and_the_Hare?fbclid=IwAR0-PGE8QybENM1blgTf9oXqUXM_iPhYz-NXfeXURpwkVpolOR5aWcM73Gw

Friday, April 5, 2019

DOGMA VERSUS DEMONSTRATION

Elevating government regulations and laws to an officious ethical supremacy automatically over actual proofs of things novel, new, unconventional, that either have been, or, which can be factually demonstrated as valid, true, legitimate, subordinates the puissance, the power, of citizens-visionaries' ingenuity, to crass, unimaginative dotards' conceptional inadequacies. Facts: Airplanes do fly. Submarines do surface. X-rays do reveal. Wild plants do heal. Cellphone, internet all work. Open minds and hearts facilitate the quality of life, which closed ones dim!

Thursday, April 4, 2019

STEVO

STEVO I first glimpsed him from a window of the St. Joseph Hospital room that our mother occupied on April 11, 1956, in Kirkwood, Missouri. We had a new baby brother! Daddy had held him up to the window, so that we would see him; we being me, 5; Schleria, 4: Harold, 1. Stevie was the name they gave to the baby boy, which he later discarded for Stephen, more formally later, two decades later , when he simply became known as " Stevo" to me, a remarkably bright young man. He departed this life in 2015. His was a rich and fulfilling sojourn. I remember his big eyes, big laugh, big ideas, big mind, and big heart. His proficiency in Latin from 9th grade served me well for years. He was my biggest cheerleader, as his wife Judi, and daughter Stevielynn, were his! He loved sports and Tiger Woods. He smiled broadly, laughed loudly, whenever he recalled my example to him and his peers in junior high and high school. He also was most adept at earning money, which he was not loathe to share with many, kin or not. He was a stockbroker and a broker-dealer, who later became a Republican, after Daddy and Mama died; yet he was a staunch student, advocate of black history and culture. He also partook of the finery of Western civilization, graduating Amherst College and Stanford University, with a Master's in Business Administration . Stevo was a complex, complete man. He was also my legal client, on a variety of issues and a man whom I loved and yet miss greatly. Happy birthday brother Stephen M. Coleman, whom I know was Stevo!

Wednesday, April 3, 2019

ASTEROID AND ONION SKINS

ASTEROIDS AND ONION SKINS Peeling the onion of myself is like peeling away husky onion skins. I sense that there is really not much greater mystery, conundrum, in the nature of the onion, than is within me. Nor within me is there any greater, mystery, conundrum, than the onion. After all, it automatically obeys the divine synchrony of laws, forces, influences that we latterly 'humans' must infer, deduce, intuit, discern in life on earth in order to be equal to the onion, grape, leaf. Even the name "man" may not be aptly , accurately, describing what I am, what we are. Just by our being able to wonder, to ponder, imagine, surely does not means that we are more than onions , grapes, leaves, lions, tigers, bears, and microbes. No greater physics, mathematics, engineering, biology, hydrology, ecology, zoology, artistry, music, phenomena exists upon the earth than man! We followed the husks that covered the earth after the 66 million year old asteroid catalyzed the earth obliterating 99% of its life; causing instability-extinction of dinosaurs, onions, even those who obeyed by instinct This we know as a fact , no longer theory; no idle speculation. Science has found the fried petrified frizzled fish frames! So whether one wrangles with the notions of ascent or the descent of man, the fact of the mere existence of man, the presence of each man, is marvelous enough by any name, by any sequel. When there was no possibility of "sin" , upon the earth; no Adam, no Eve, no serpent, no Bible, Quran, ancient civilizations , no language, no humans , no gods, no metaphors , no apostrophes , no fiction, nothing but life, there was mass destruction, extinction, and resurgence as man and as woman, as extraordinarily, as mysteriously .  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/08/the-day-the-dinosaurs-died?fbclid=IwAR0sieOeznvgeH8p1OqDpH-e15Bi9tn41rz8lLCA-tXu_eHMBOWgavfNYXM

VALUES

SELF-TRANSCENDENT VALUES Lacking an historical understanding of, much less, a contemporary appreciation for, "the least of these among us," too many of us fall for the allure, bells, whistles, tinsel, of legal, commercial, exploitation that was designed to divest us of the very resources , values, discipline needed to enable us to escape the detested category of impoverished. Fleeing from it we yet encounter it. These false fronts that we wear in the effort not to bear the bane of impoverishment is but cellophane, translucent, hiding nothing from no one, but ourselves. We have been baited. We have been hooked. We have been took, had. Admit. Remit. Commit. Submit to true values for yourself and your family members. That Is the truthful way out of an African American backwardness, self destruction, now besetting us . 

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

FIGHT BACK

Fight back, fight forward, with what you have at hand, if no more than truth, faith, the holy spirit, and self-love, fight!

START IN YOUR HEART

START IN YOUR HEART, THOSE OF YOU WHO ASK "WHAT CAN I DO?" START RIGHT THERE. GOD WILL ANSWER.

Monday, April 1, 2019

TERM SLAVES

"For a variety of reasons --loyalty, intelligence, special skills , industry, meritorious service , sexual relationships, bearing an owner's child --slaves were often promised their freedom at some future date. Gaining the status bar of 'term slave,' which limited servitude to a specified number of years or until a designated age , was rare in the lower South but fairly common in Delaware , Maryland, Virginia, the District of Columbia, and towns and cities across the upper South. Both slave and master profited from such an arrangement: slaves, by securing the promise of liberty for themselves and possibly for their children; masters, by commanding a more substantial measure of loyalty on the basis of that promise. Most often these arrangements were put on paper --in deeds, wills, marital contracts, bills of sale, indentures, or mortgages--which stipulated that the person so named would gain his or her freedom after an owner's death or that of his widow, or when the bond servant attained a certain age . In some instances, owners expressed their desire that their slaves be freed at some future time both in deeds and in their last will and testaments.... Rather than surrender valuable property in accord with an owner's grant of terms of servitude , heirs and other family members often strove to keep slaves permanently enslaved. Administrators of estates, executors of wills, widows, heirs, white children, creditors, business partners--they all employed ethically questionable if not outright illegal means to subvert the original intent of the owner. White family members sometimes 'lost ', hid, destroyed the legal documents--last will and testaments, bills of sale, deeds, indentures--that supported any emancipation claims their slaves, usually fully aware of a deceased owner's wishes in their regard , might make. In some instances, years beyond the date of manumission prescribed by the deceased, owners in the same family refused to surrender the slaves. " P.93-94, "Term Slaves," APPEALING FOR LIBERTY : FREEDOM SUITS IN THE SOUTH, by Loren Schweninger (2018)

AUTOSOME: SLEEP AND WAKE

Sleepfulness and wakefulness Somnolence, sleep, and a consort, wakefulness, weigh-in on scales of consciousness each day, when and where and in whom thoughtfulness and thoughtlessness gather-in to play; meanwhile in each segment in its entirety, autosomal life balances our sway, defying death's disarray . 

NIPSEY HUSSLE --MARTYR

The killing of Los Angeles, California, rapper, Nipsey Hussle, yesterday,has brought forth prayers of hope. But hope is emotive; we need motive forces, who are funded, trained, disciplined, commanded, to counter the insurgent forces who destroy within us. Nipsey himself said much of the negative socialization comes from rap-music itself. Such motive forces were lacking during post-Civil War mayhem. Maybe now with more millionaires/billionaires' awareness motive forces may be able to manifest, in the body-politic ad/or outside of politics.In an interview last year with Forbes, Hussle said that as a youth, he'd fallen prey to the "ignorance and self-destructiveness in the narrative that was pushed on us through music in our generation." "I see how damaging that was, for myself included, and we're all subject to the social pressure," he said. "I wasn't above it. Each of us are impacted by what's going on around us. For me, understanding the platform I have and who it speaks to, it's about being strategic. ..."