Troy

51st Day of #BlackHistoryMonth Chinua Achebe (Things Fall Apart) Passed March 21, 2013 Actually my website originally showed that Achebe passed on March 22nd, but I noticed other sources that showed he actually passed on the 21, so the daily post of does not match the date today.

Just in case someone is wondering, where the heck is this site's moderator? I taking a hand-off approach here. When I previously deleted an exchange between you two my sense was that it was completely unconstructive and there was serious malintent. This exchange, while no more productive, and despite the very cutting barbs, seems to be between to people who actually enjoy going at each other and are dare I say it... having fun. I also have to admit one line had me laughing out loud, but I will not admit who wrote it I also don't think Alice Walker would approve, but she is not hear to express her views.

What a nice review. If I read your take I would have made an effort to see the flick. Now maybe I will--thanks for sharing!

I just started The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution by C.L.R. James. This book was written in 1938. The 2nd edition was published in 1962 with updates that James described as "...never more than to the extent of a few lines." The copy I'm reading was published in 1989. The first chapter "The Property" is just hard to read. I mean I've read account of the middle passage and the torture slave put Black folks through, but James account is graphic account is hard to read. I have never been able to wrap my brain around how people can be so cruel to each other. The fact that so many people could be so cruel i unfathomable to me. I decided to pick this book up because I recently read about another book (I can;t recall the name now), that described Nat Turners rebellion so my interested was piqued in this book as the L'Ouverture's rebellion was the only successful slave revolt in history.

"Nothing stays the same." Well on that universal truth we are in complete agreement. And as far as knowing what will happen, I'll be the first to say I have no clue, and determining what to do about this nebulous future....well I'm just as clueless. But I do know what the current state is, and there is room for improvement. I also know doing the same thing will typically result in the same results. Don't get me started on our dependence upon technology. Once the suits took over the whole thing became perverted-- but that is fodder for another conversation. Who knows maybe Hillary will usher in a new age of enlightened government. Maybe what we need is feminine energy leading this country. Maybe the change I'm looking for is right there all along...

50th Day of ‪#‎BlackHistoryMonth‬: March 21, 1981, in Mobile, Alabama, 19-year-old Michael Donald was Lynched Ravi Howard wrote an award winning book about this horrific event.

Cynique I drew the conclusion simply because I think a Clinton presidency represents more of the same, a continuation of what we have, the status quo. Do you think Hillary Clinton represents something different? As far as the economic differences of your generation and subsequent ones there are plenty of data. There is no speculation here, as the record speaks for itself: http://www.crainswealth.com/article/20150610/WEALTH/150619999/gen-x-worse-off-than-millennials The Atlantic did a piece on unemployment rate of millennials and despite higher rates of education (and much more debt from students loans) unemplyment is worse than with was for Gen-X or Baby Boomers: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/02/indisputable-evidence-that-millennials-have-it-worse-than-any-generation-in-50-years/283752/ Of course there are poor Baby Boomers, the problem is that there will be more poor Gen Xer's. This poor Millennials will probably have to work until 80 before they can collect social security and retire, assuming they live that long. Again, steady as we go is not working for American's in general, and Black people in particular. But while I thought Obama represented change (at least that is what he said), I think it is more likely that Bernie represents a more likely potential for change than Hillary. But as you said we are not on the same wavelength on this issue

It interesting Cynique how you interpreted my last statement on blaming Hillary. You believe Hillary will make a difference, I obviously do not. You clearly have faith in the current political system's ability to work for the people. I do not. Baby Boomers were the last generation to witness and benefit from constant economic growth for the bulk of their adult years. My generation and everyone after me has seen steady losses. I'm also sure you are also aware that this generation of kids will be economically worse off than the previous generation. But I understand why you might be nice and comfortable and happy with the status quo; you lucked out by virtue of your birth date. Our children may not be so lucky...

49th Day of ‪#‎BlackHistoryMonth‬: We lost world renown poet Ai on this day in 2010

48th Day of ‪#‎BlackHistoryMonth‬: Historian and Egyptologist Dr. Yosef Alfredo Antonio ben-Jochannan (“Dr. Ben”) Passed March 19, 2015

This discussion forum went down shortly after 8 a.m. Eastern, and was restored around 8 p.m. It seems my Blog was bombarded by attempts to log into my admin account. The this barrage of attempts caused to to exceed the allocation of resources allocated to me by my web host. Which essentially brought down anything that uses a database, my Blog, large sections of the site and of course this discussion forum. It really never ends. A bunch of IP address were blocked and I installed a plugin on my wordpress blog called wordfence. Basically it will block any IP address that attempts multiple failed login's. This should prevent this problem from reoccurring. If you use the Wordpress CMS I encourage you to install Wordfence too. Sorry for the inconvenience.

47th Day of ‪#‎BlackHistoryMonth‬: Dr. Frances Cress Welsing Author of The Isis Papers Born on this day in 1935

OK. Which president did not start, continue, or escalate a war? One would think waging war is part of the job of being President of the U.S.

The country will wake up and realize that those with money can not be allowed to control the political process. The current system is simply not working --even our archaic process for casting a vote needs to change. We are still caucusing like we did as a colony -- it makes no freaking sense, the debates are useless, the reporting is biased, and people are fed up. Many American's if not most are pulling for a Bernie and a Donald because they want something completely different than what we have. If you have not noticed I'm in this camp. When does the steady improvement begin Cynique? Life expectancy is down and the planet is in serious jeopardy of being able incapable of supporting human life. At least we still have the NCAA basketball tournament to keep us distracted.

I try not to let me personal preference for the Trump cloud my opinion of what is possible. There are several plausible scenarios which would place him in the white house. This may be my naivete, but for some reason I'm not too concerned about a Trump presidency. For one, the middle class has been screwed over for much of my adult life. Secondly, maybe Trump's presidency will wake folks the hell up. If the later is true, then it would be worth it. Of course it is also within the realm of possibility that a Trump presidency might be beneficial. It is funny that so many people believe this, but the punditocracy don't even entertain the idea. But the punditocracy are the same people who put a Black on everything negative and a white one on everything positive, so what do they know.... Time will tell.

Well I'm glad you still have faith in the democratic process. I definitely out "cynic" you on this one. Since I live in NYC my vote will not matter. We will elect the democrat, not that will will matter much. So excuse me if I can't generate much excitement over another eight years of Clintons in the whitehouse. It might as well be Claire and Frank Underwood (from the Netflix show of House of Cards).

I agree, I think Trump will pull many votes from the center and left. I also believe that many Bernie supporters will fail to show up if he is not the nominee. While I understand why white folks might support a Trump. For the life of me, I do not understand why Black folks LOVE Hillary (and Bill so much). I would think that Bernie would have much more support from Black folks than the media is saying that he has. Anecdotally, to a person, everyone I know personally, who is Black, supports Bernie, at least the ones who has expressed a preference. Honestly, I think the media is biased against Bernie. But that could be my own bias I'm glad he stayed in the race. This is almost as exciting as March Madness.

Yes Del I saw that you posted this over a year ago I was just asking which character was which.

46th Day of ‪#‎BlackHistoryMonth‬: Alice Walker, "the first legally married inter-racial couple in Mississippi" married March 17 1967

@Pioneer1 exactly. This is one reason I stopped reading the New York Times. They have this bad habit of "reporting" on social problems as if they are only Black problems. You would never think white people have problems with poverty, murder, obesity, crime, teen pregnancy, drugs, education, or marriage, because they usually show Black people in these situations. Further you would have a reason to believe Black people are capable of anything important, because they virtually never report on anything positive that Black people do. For all practical purposes they don't even review books written by Black people. For all of these reasons, we have to support independent Black Press, so find a newspaper, and pay for a subscription.

No Cynique I do not think news outlets should stop editorializing. The problem is that news sources don't appear to care about the difference between journalism and editorial, and are failing to distinguish between the two. They are also failing to distinguish between advertising, editorial and even still journalism. Time will tell what will happen in the election. Polls and pundits were fantastically wrong about Trump's chances before the primaries started, so it is not beyond the realm of possibility for them to get it completely wrong again.

@CDBurns, he does and Trump's influence grows. NPR had some Black minister on the radio today backing Trump.If the GOP were smart they'd suck it up and back their boy, cause they don't stand a chance against the Democrats without him. Now I don't think for a split second that the Republicans give a crap about what Trump will, or will not do for the American people. It seems this is about control, and apparently they can not control Trump. Despite some suggesting this, I never ever thought Obama was at risk of being assassinated. If Trump becomes president I think he is at much more risk than Obama ever was... Here is the thing @Cynique, you do not need more than 1/2 the country to agree with Trump, shoot it will be a miracle if more than 1/2 the country even votes. Trump simply needs more electors. Men have lost the presidency despite have more popular votes. Gore had 1/2 a million more people vote for him than Bush did, and Gore still lost. Again Cynique, you point out another problem with journalism today--or rather the poor excuse for what we call journalism. There is simply no distinction between advocacy and reporting the news. The notion that one news source is liberal and another is conservative is simply outrageous and does a gross disservice to the public. If news organization are brazen enough to make statements like the one that kicked off this discussion, we are really in deep do-do.

@Cynique the point of the cliche is that good or bad publicity is better than no publicity at all, for someone seeking the attention of the public. Besides, getting busted for raping a child is stretching the point way too far. I'm not suggesting people engage in vile illegal activity, or cheat at a sport, or attention (though they will get it). If we regin this in back to my point concerning book reviews specifically, or publicity in general, an unfavorable review in the NY Times is better the no review at all.

45th Day of ‪#‎BlackHistoryMonth‬: Freedom's Journal, the first African-American newspaper published in the United States, debuted on this day in 1827

Bill's career had already wound down, but like Michael Jackson or R Kelly, if Bill decided to go on a tour today and talk about his experiences, people would come out in droves, Bill would make tons of money and the media would be climbing over each other to cover it. You know this. Without this controversy, fewer people would be interested in Bill.