bookfan

Kola said she is in constant pain. The evidence for that is indisputable. If imagining an alternative reality helps dull that pain, I'm not going to begrudge her the relief.

That's powerful stuff. My feelings about how to react to your stories have evolved, in part because when you say this sort of thing, it sounds so honest. If doing your thing helps you cope with your "secret hurt," and it doesn't hurt anybody else, then I'm glad for you. My life is way too easy by comparison for me to be making light of the obvious difficulties in yours. I will buy your next book and send you every wish for health and happiness with that order.

Thanks, Xeon, but I've got to backtrack a little bit. I took a closer look at the numbers I linked to earlier, and realized I need to apologize to kenno for being a little too quick to dismiss his contention that most Hispanics are white. The article he quoted said something about 90 percent of Hispanics being counted as white, and the 2050 report appears to do something similar. Here’s the link again to the Census Bureau’s projections for minority population from 2010 to 2050. The 2010 racial breakdowns in the first column in the first section of Table 1 support kenno’s point. If you subtract non-Hispanic whites (64.7 percent of population) from total whites (79.5 percent), you come up with 14.8 percent of the population being in the subcategory of white Hispanics. Those white Hispanics would account for virtually all Hispanics (listed as 16 percent of population). And, as kenno said, that would mean that in 2050 the population would still be overwhelmingly white. That prompts these thoughts: 1) The idea that the total number of whites would still be a majority was right there in the report from the beginning. In the far right-hand column, the 2050 projection puts non-Hispanic whites at 46.3 percent but total whites at 74 percent. The point of this report was never that all whites would be less than half the population, but that non-Hispanic whites would be less than half. 2) I seriously doubt the figures that imply over 90 percent of Hispanics are white. They conflict with the actual count of race and ethnicity in the most recent census. As you can see from the (hard) data from 2000, a slim majority — 50.2 percent — of the people who described themselves as Hispanic also described themselves as being some other race than white. I think the actual count has to be more reliable than the projections. 3) Whichever figures are right, there’s a problem with any projections that assume what’s happening now will continue to happen for a long, long time…because change is the only certainty. There’s a horrendous example from U.S. public policy: in 2000, the federal budget was in the black for the first time in a long time. The economists in the White House and the Congressional Budget Office assumed the new-found solvency would be permanent, so they issued reports projecting that federal budget surpluses of 4 or 5 trillion dollars would accumulate by 2010. Bush and Gore both campaigned on those projected surpluses — Bush said we should spend it on tax cuts, while Gore wanted to spend it on new programs. Now that it’s 2010, however, we all know those predictions of overflowing government coffers were utterly meaningless. I don't expect this will interest anyone else as much as it did me, but I had fun kicking it around.

Nobody's tricking anybody. You're just not understanding the information. The "majority-minority crossover" that's projected to happen by 2050 refers to the number of all non-whites plus Hispanics rising above the number of whites who don't identify themselves as Hispanic. Yes, that new "minority" will include some caucasian Hispanics, and because the tipping point is just barely reached in 2050, people of the caucasian race could still outnumber non-caucasians. But the trends driving that shift aren't going to stop in 2050. Whites will eventually make up a smaller percentage of the population than non-whites, no matter whether it comes in 2040, 2050, or 2060. Here's the word from the horse's mouth: official Census Bureau population projections through 2050. "In all five series, the racial and ethnic diversity of the U.S. population is shown to increase. With the minority groups projected to maintain or increase their shares of the population, the proportion of the population that is non-Hispanic White alone is projected to decrease.3 The amount of net international migration that occurs during the next four decades could affect how quickly the minority share of the population grows. In each of the four series where migration occurs, the size of the minority population is expected to increase to the point that they represent the numeric majority between 2040 and 2050, we refer to this as the majority-minority crossover (see Figure 5). 3 In this document, minority is defined as people who are races other than White alone or are Hispanic." What Figure 5 shows is the minority population increasing from about 33 percent today to just over 50 percent by 2050. That's all minorities (that includes Hispanics) combined slightly outnumbering whites. Remember that "Hispanic" is an ethnic category, however, not a racial one. Some Hispanics are causcasian, some are black, and some are AmerIndian. This report explains in detail why the Hispanic portion of the population (already outnumbering blacks) is going to grow faster than any other group over the next 40 years. The reasons: Hispanics are younger, have more kids, and make up most of the immigrants. The top three categories within Hispanic are Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban. I don't think you can argue that most of those folks are caucasian.

The info for this video identifies the singer only as "Pinky." How can someone have a voice this big, publish videos this professional, and remain a complete mystery on the Internet?

Nice ad. He's a good-looking man.

That's a nice line, too.

I was reading about James McBride, and learned that he is a very accomplished musician. He and other famous writers have a somewhat less-accomplished band called The Rock Bottom Remainders. They play a few gigs each year as a benefit for literacy efforts. They're playing Washington, Philadelphia, New York and Boston next month for the benefit of Haitian schools. See if you can identify the writers from their caricatures. Click to enlarge. Scroll down for the names. 1. Amy Tan (Joy Luck Club) 2. Kathi Kamen Goldmark (And My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You) 3. Ridley Pearson (Undercurrents) 4. Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet in Heaven) 5. Roy Blount Jr. (Alphabet Juice) 6. Matt Groening (The Simpsons) 7. Scott Turow (Presumed Innocent) 8. James McBride (Song Yet Sung) 9. Dave Barry (Big Trouble) 10. Stephen King (Duma Key) 11. Greg Isles (Dead Sleep)

You called it.

That's a nice line. Somebody needs to refer to their story bible. As Erzulie is saying in another thread: "Where a show might have a lot of details, there can sometimes be a book which contains rules about the show, backstory, forbidden interactions, etc. that book is referred to as the show's Bible." This certainly does resemble a soap opera. Hmmm....soap opera. Who have I seen write about soap opera writing and story bibles on Thumper's Corner?

This quote is phony. The invented attack is a registered trademark of Kola Boof.

Thanks for the recommendation, Thumper!

John Edward Bruce's The Black Sleuth has been described as the first black detective story in American literature, but it is really a detective story in name only. The sleuth of the title, a Yoruba named Sadipe Okukenu, doesn't even take up detecting until the second half of the narrative, and once he does join the International Detective Agency and is assigned to tackle a gang of con artists planning a diamond heist, he does little actual sleuthing. The story peters out before the diamond is stolen or the criminals are even apprehended. I don't mean to dismiss Bruce's tale, which was published in his lifetime only as a magazine story that ran in monthly installments from 1907 to 1909. The main interest of the story, which is considerable, lies in Bruce's angry, arch repudiation of white supremacy and in his commentary -- a half-century before Ralph Ellison published The Invisible Man -- on how whites do not see blacks. The Black Sleuth is, more than anything, a restatement of the race philosophy and activism of a widely published journalist, whom a contemporary described as "the prince of Afro-American columnists." Bruce, however, rejected the term "Afro-American," insisting on "Negro." He was a fervent black nationalist who advocated fighting lynching with lynching, and who saw Booker T. Washington as obstructing black progress with the mediocrity of vocational education. He was a largely self-taught student of black history, an early Afro-centrist who co-founded the Negro Society for Historical Research with Arthur Schomburg. Black Sleuth revolves around Sadipe and his brother, Mojola, who are superior in every way to every white person they encounter. Sadipe was educated at Eton, is an expert chess player and a piano prodigy, and is fluent in Latin, French, and German. Mojola writes and speaks even more languages, and quotes Shakespeare, Burns, and the Bible. Throughout the first half of the narrative, they engage whites both hostile and sympathetic in travels through South Africa, England, and America. They shame and confound the Caucasians they meet with their indictments of white racism and colonialism, and of the hypocrisy of white Christian evangelism. The book upends white concepts of race relations, portraying Africa as the land of light and promise, and Western society as the more barbarous. "Before your race had a civilization or a religion, mine was, and from it your race has borrowed and stolen all that was best and most useful in art, science, religion, letters, politics and government, from which you have evolved what you proudly term Anglo-Saxon civilization," Mojola lectures an American Southerner whose father captained a slave ship. "Intelligent Africans laugh at your complacent egotism." Sadipe travels to the United States, where he is astonished to learn about segregation and lynching. In Washington, D.C., he visits the Capitol and notes that the "misnamed" statue of the Goddess of Liberty keeps watch from her peak over the liberties and rights of the people in only "mock seriousness." One of the most stirring scenes in the book comes when Sadipe attends a black church in the deep South and hears a white missionary talk about how the "favored race" is lifting up heathen Africa. When the congregation sings the missionary standard, "From Greenland's Icy Mountains," with its references to the error and darkness of indigenous peoples, it becomes too much for Sadipe. He rises and delivers a soliloquy of rebuke, saying the heathens of Africa are not nearly so barbarous as the white Christians of the South, "who burn Negroes at the stake and hang them from trees and telegraph poles." As for the hymn, "it was written for a race at a time when human slavery dulled the consciences of men," he says. "No black man who understands the meaning of the words can sing it and retain his self respect." Bruce is often didactic, but one of his deft touches is to have Sadipe pose as a waiter to investigate the white con artists. Because his face is black, his boss tells him, he can listen in on their plans and they will never take notice of him. Some of Bruce's rhetoric is prescient, as when he says the white nations then carving up Africa will not be able to hold onto it in the end. His optimistic Ethiopianism (Mojola quotes Psalms 68:31) has yet to be ratified, however. After a century of war and apartheid and disease, these words ring a little hollow: "[Africa] has no fears as to her future. Her star is in the ascendant. She stands upon the threshold of a future pregnant with hope and big with magnificent possibilities." By the time Bruce published his tale, the Sherlock Holmes series had run its course and defined the genre. Black Sleuth is a weak sliver of a detective story, with much of Sadipe's success coming from the blind luck of walking into the right music hall at the right time, and from what he admits is pure guesswork. But it is clear Bruce's aim was polemic rather than entertainment. Mojola lectures, and the Southerner sees the error of his prejudice. Sadipe vows to die before he will let a crowd of rednecks force him into the Jim Crow car on a train, and they slink away with their tails between their legs. Bruce's story ran in McGirt's, a Philadelphia-based black magazine with a circulation of about 1,500. I imagine black parents reading that story to their children in 1,500 sitting rooms and parlors month after month, and those children listening in awe as two African supermen fearlessly defied all who tried to diminish them. And I think that is what Bruce envisioned, too.

Thanks for clearing that up. But seriously, you should not be doing this. Posting names and photos and tagging them with "bipolar disorder" is a very bad idea. It is naive to think anything can be deleted from the Internet. The Borders at the Westfarms Mall doesn't even have any James McBride books...so what is the point of your original complaint?

You came here to beat the Kola Boof drum. The first thing you did in this new persona was pick for your user name a black mother-goddess who "has been known to wreak a terrible vengeance on those [black] men who abuse [black] women." The very first post from this obvious sock puppet was on one of Kola Boof's greatest obsessions: the superlative quality of Kola Boof's singing voice. Although your first post praised a 10-minute video that summarizes the Kola Boof story, when you were later called out you asked in faux ignorance, "Who is Kolan?", and claimed that what you're really here for is to whip up "outrage" over the fact that some books were touching other books. That student should get a restraining order.

It's been a Borders store for somewhere between four-and-a-half to five years, according to archived versions of the mall's directory. If you really lived in Hartford and had really patronized a different bookstore in that location when you were in your early teens, it would not have been a Barnes & Noble, but rather a Waldenbooks -- which is what the 2005 directory says the Borders used to be. You keep striking out on your attempts to construct a believable story, but you are obviously powerless to stop. Your impersonation of a real-life teenage girl takes this in a very troubling direction. Very troubling.

Another song by the same fabulous singer. Who is she? None shall sleep until her name is known! (another great song) The title of this second Ocacia song is "Bathe Siqhume Kabili," which appears to be Zulu: "They Said [something] Two". Somebody help me out here. Imhotep -- IsiZulu is one of the Bantu languages, right? Do your linguist thing and tell us what this means.

LOL! I love that you never stop trying. You are adorable in that way.

There is no Barnes and Nobel in Westfarms Mall. Kola is not embarrassed by smut. Harry Belafonte did not record "The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born."

Every time I've been to Barnes and Noble, the books have been arranged on the narrow shelves with their spines facing outwards. There isn't room to put one row of books behind another. And they're in alphabetical order within each section.

Watch the trailer for Shahadah's new film, Motherland. And get an earful of this song from the soundtrack, "Come Into The Sunshine," by Shahadah's band, Ocacia. I don't know who that woman is, but what a voice! The documentary features commentary by a host of prominent Africans and Americans, including Jacob Zuma, Meles Zenawi, Molefi Kete Asante, and Harry Belafonte. According to Wikipedia, Shahadah filmed an interview with Desmond Tutu but edited out the remarks of the Nobel Peace Prize winner after Tutu said President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe should be forced out of office if he won't leave. Don't know if I trust Wikipedia on that one -- Tutu said that 15 months ago. In any event, Tutu is right: Mugabe has ruined a beautiful country.

I didn't know Bruce wrote a detective novel. He was an associate of early black nationalists like Alexander Crummell, Henry Highland Garnet, and Martin R. Delany -- although they were all old enough to be his father. Bruce and Arthur Schomburg started the Negro Society for Historical Research to showcase black scholarship. The collection they put together eventually formed the basis for the NYPL's Schomburg Center, which has Bruce's papers. They've got to have a copy of Black Sleuth. I'll check it out. Thanks, Thumper.

But there is one titled The Redeeming Sin. You are not the only silent film buff, Kola. I do not hate you, Kola. I find you fascinating and entertaining and tragic. Feel free to use that as a blurb on Virgins in the Beehive, if you ever publish it. I picked up a used copy of Diary after I started reading Thumper's Corner, and was tickled to see you had inscribed it to someone who is a member here. The book is utterly amazing. Crazy, absurd stories about you ordering lion cub in restaurants; you and Osama reaching orgasm simultaneously; and Osama poisoning the unborn baby the two of you conceived. And completely incongruously, interspersed in the craziness, there is thought-provoking commentary about what it means for blacks to intermarry and have mixed-race children. The fact that you have successfully published and marketed such a book on your own is a wonder, and the forest of lies that you have planted to make that happen is astounding. I think everybody should buy a Kola Boof book, if only to be able to say that they were in on one of the weirdest stories in American publishing. You are a highly intelligent, passionate, relentlessly determined person who is also clearly in thrall to a deep compulsion to tell lies. This particular conversion we are having is one I have seen over and over again in Thumper's Corner: you tell a pointlessly fake story, somebody calls B.S., and you go into the sock-puppet defense. I recognize how hard it must be for you to have trapped yourself in a public identity that does not allow you a public life, and requires new lies every day to maintain. Live long, sell lots of books, and find relief from your pain, Kola Boof.

Tried to make it display larger but couldn't. Right-click on the image and open it in a new window to see it full-size.

Happy Birthday, Kola! This is from today's Sunday funnies -- Baby Blues. I saw it and had to share it. Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott must be fans.