Troy

Pioneer, do you know many people were falsely convicted based on eye witness accounts. Eye witness accounts are notoriously unreliable. I'm not talking about people who are deliberately lying on the witness stand I'm talking about well-meaning people giving an account of what they saw that was ultimately discovered to differ from what actually happened. To Cynique's point, one's personal experience is not proof. Even similar personal experiences of many people is not proof. This is not to say those experiences are false, but it does not constitute "proof." If 1,000 people see a weather balloon and are convinced it is an alien space craft, that does not mean it is true does it? And needless to say, those observations are not proof of an alien sighting. While it is fascinating to consider the possibility of visits from extraterrestrials, Big Foot wandering woods in America, or life after death. No one has provided proof of any of it--despite the numerous personal accounts and anecdotes. Again, this does not mean that Big Foot does not exist, but proof has not been presented.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 14, 2014 Contact: Tony Valenzuela at (323) 376-6801 tvalenzuela@lambdaliterary.org Lambda Literary Foundation Announces E. Lynn Harris Award for Excellence in Black LGBT Short Fiction The Lambda Literary Foundation is thrilled to announce that A. Naomi Jackson is the winner of the first E. Lynn Harris Award for Excellence in Black LGBT Short Fiction. Selected by contest judges Linda Villarosa and Don Weise, "Ladies" is a short story set in Jamaica that chronicles the romance between two women who meet at teachers college and reconnect many years later as women in Brooklyn. Weise says of the story, "What impressed Linda and me wasn't just Naomi's command of craft and storytelling but that "Ladies" is so original and moving. It's such a pleasure to discover fiction of this caliber from a new writer. It's exactly what we hoped for when we created the Harris Award in the first place." Jackson says on winning the award, "It is such an honor to be selected as the winner of the E. Lynn Harris Award for Excellence in Black LGBT Short Fiction. I became a fan of Harris' work when I was a teenager. Reading his books were an essential part of my coming out process and helped me to see the possibility of being fully embraced by both black and gay communities. I am so grateful to the Lambda Literary Foundation for demonstrating its commitment to literature by and for queer people of color with this award." A. Naomi Jackson A. Naomi Jackson is the 2013-2014 ArtsEdge resident at the University of Pennsylvania's Kelly Writers House. She studied fiction at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she was awarded the Maytag Fellowship for Excellence in Fiction to complete her first novel, Who Don't Hear Will Feel. Jackson traveled to South Africa on a Fulbright scholarship, where she received an M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town. A graduate of Williams College, her work has appeared in brilliant corners, The Encyclopedia Project, The Caribbean Writer, and Sable. Her short story, "Ladies" won the 2012 BLOOM chapbook contest. She has been a resident at Hedgebrook and Vermont Studio Center and received the Archie D. and Bertha H. Walker scholarship at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. "Congratulations to A. Naomi Jackson for winning the E. Lynn Harris Award," said Tony Valenzuela, LLF's Executive Director. "We're excited to showcase such an important emerging writer." *** The Lambda Literary Foundation nurtures, celebrates, and preserves LGBT literature through programs that honor excellence, promote visibility and encourage development of emerging writers. LLF's programs include: the Lambda Literary Awards, the Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices, LGBT Writers in Schools, and our comprehensive website, www.LambdaLiterary.org. For more information call (323) 643-4281.

Yes I saw a elderly white man with a long beard, there were little cherubic white angles with halos and feathery wings floating around me me. I was scared to death, or rather back to life... Pioneer1, I never had an NDE. I have had experiences were I felt I was aided by something or someone non-corporeal, I had an experience just last week, that if I were to described it to you would sounds like all the stories you've heard that start with, "...and God spoke to me..." I do believe people make up stories to fit their reality. Sometimes these stories involves spirits, God or extraterrestrials--it depends on the person. While I find the stories interesting, I don't believe all of them simply because two smart, conscious people can witness the same event and come away with completely different descriptions. Why would I believe anything someone with brain trauma and coming out of a coma has to say. Here is the book referenced above. The Soul Hypothesis: Investigations into the Existence of the Soul The "Sooner or later, the contributors to The Soul Hypothesis warn, scientists will pinpoint the exact three neurons whose firing accompanies the thought of our deciding to make a phone call or, if you prefer, deciding to get up and get a beer from the refrigerator. As ever more such micro-couplings are observed, we will—so scientists tell us with unseemly glee—gradually come to see that our cherished conscious life is nothing but a long series of electrical impulses, not an autonomous realm of free will and free thought. [...] The book's contributors set out this scientific challenge fully and engagingly, but they also expose its fallacies.The Soul Hypothesis performs yeoman service in rescuing the human capacities for consciousness and voluntary action from scientific challenge." — The Wall Street Journal

I know scary stuff. But you create an environment where wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few. Groups like this fester and grow out of confusion over who the enemy is... A resurgence of groups like this is further evidence of a failed education system.

Or worse Cynique being fined to fired for just expressing your opinion. I've heard some players were fined for expressing their opinions. It seems mere words are more powerful and treated more harshly than actual actions. We live in a world where people are literately unemployable because of comments made online?! Culturally we have completely lost it. As an aside, has anyone observed an 18 year old hooked on social media? It is crazy! Connected and engaged 24 hours--stressed without it.

I just posted Kam's review of Half of a Yellow Sun (2014) and his interview with on of the film's stars Anika Noni Rose.

Pioneer it really is no different than a black man who has sex with a Black woman and then displays no obvious signs of respect for her otherwise. Sometimes these brothers show no signs of respect during the "love making." I think this whole "controversy" is complete bullshit. Meanwhile the players are still million dollar slaves and the so called fans are still suckers paying hundreds of dollars for over priced sports apparel, tickets and cable bills, while thousands of Black boys are uneducated and exploited by colleges.

More about the the debate I spoke about above

Check out the debate "If consciousness is just the workings of neurons and synapses, how do we explain the phenomenon of near-death experience? By some accounts, about 3% of the U.S. population has had one: an out-of-body experience often characterized by remarkable visions and feelings of peace and joy, all while the physical body is close to death. To skeptics, there are more plausible, natural explanations, like oxygen deprivation. Is the prospect of an existence after death “real” and provable by science, or a construct of wishful thinking about our own mortality? One of the comments from the debate: I attended the debate last night and it was enjoyable. As a psychiatrist (in NYC to attend the American Psychiatric Association convention) but also having experienced an NDE 12 years ago and read widely on this topic and spoken to patients with NDE like experiences - it is a topic that fascinates me. The awareness in my NDE was the same as right now - if not more clear - in stark contrast to the awareness in a brief hallucinatory phase and then confusional phase as I was recovering from the concussion and "loss of consciousness" (whilst to me there was no loss of my awareness/consciousness - I was just somewhere else - initially in a dark void and then in a tunnel moving at vast acceleration with what looked like stars whizzing by outside the translucent tunnel wall and I was accompanied by a loving protective guide - both of us had spirit like "bodies" that were far from the "blobs" that Dr Carroll jokingly referred to them as). This was my subjective experience, it was of a completely different quality of conscious being-ness to having a dream. I felt that Dr Carroll and Dr Novella were tactically far better debaters than Dr Alexander and Dr Moody. Dr Alexander and Dr Moody would have benefited in a much longer forum to fully expand their argument. Dr Moody's focus on philosophy was eloquent but I think went over the heads of many in the audience. Yet Dr Moody is correct that the materialist "scientific" position that Dr Carroll and Dr Novella so skilfully defended - breaks down in the realm of philosophical reasoning. The question/comment I wanted to ask was - MATERIALISM WITH ITS INHERENT EPI-PHENOMENALISM IS ACTUALLY MORE "SUPERNATURAL" THAN BELIEF IN AN ONTOLOGICAL REALITY TO CONSCIOUSNESS THAT IMPLIES EXISTENCE OF A "SOUL". The "Soul" perspective does not need an inexplicable gap as to how consciousness arises from non-conscious matter such as subatomic particles, atoms, cells and neural tissue. The trouble with the "naturalism" that Dr Carroll and Dr Novella were promoting as scientific is it requires this super-natural gap and leap of faith to say your sense of being you (awareness and intentionality/free-will) arises from total non-aware matter by some kind of magical means. This is obscured to many who don't know their philosophy of mind by calling the essential part of you and i an "epiphenomenon". Dr Moody and Dr Alexander don't need you to believe in this super-natural philosophical leap of faith. Dr Alexander pointed out there is much research in science and philosophical discourse to support their position on this issue and I felt Dr Novella and Dr Carroll were overly quick (but clever from a tactical perspective) to shut this part of the debate down. There is a book written on this by a group of scientists called "The Soul Hypothesis". Essentially they argue cogently that the materialism put forth by Drs Carroll and Novella is dead."

Del I agree with that even without the poetic license. Trees serve to preserve humanity, and the planet, by their very existence pumping much needed oxygen into the atmosphere. Man, on the other hand, seems to be doing everything he can do destroy the planet. This guy would be doing a bit more than shedding a tear right about now.

I scored a couple of tickets to this sold out event. A buddy of mine has connections ;-) Does anyone have a question I'll try to ask the debaters if you have a question for a specific person let me know. The debate starts at 6:30 Eastern.

Del what was the search term were you using when aalbc.com came up #1? While I'll take a high search result, even for Elias, I'm most concerned about terms which are most relevant to the website

So life simply has an unrecognized, perhaps in unrecognizable structure. If our soul is eternal, I hope my soul is a lot smarter than I am. I'd hate the idea of running around as clueless and powerless as I am now for eternity or even being around many of the people I know... We may not be less than trees but I'm not convinced we are more.

These are the visitors Google sends to this discussion forum. Elias Gutierrez is far and away the top search term. I don't even know who the heck he is! I assume number 4 is the Clarence Thomas poem, and number 5 is the film. At least, a few of the search terms have to do with books elias gutierrez (multiple variations with maia campbell) harlem book fair (multiple variations) denise nicholas bill withers abuse (multiple variations) niggers and flies (multiple variations) lorraine hansberry facts dujango burn women as witches nadiya pendleton bronx literary festival toni morrison home zoot suit Google's algorithm perplexes and annoys me. I guess I should just find out who Elias is and write a bunch of articles about him to bring traffic to the website, instead of worrying about getting people interested in talking about books. Google sends those folks to my social media platforms. I can't tell you how many times I ran a google search to find something on my site only to have my social media platform (with just a sentence and a link) out rank my site with the full content--argh?!? I some ways Google sucks, they really do. Google will probably stop sending me even the Elias Guitierrez visitors based upon that last comment. Hickson if you are lurking out there "Convicts Candy" ranked high as well.

Del this is what I mean; "Structured Chaos" is an Oxymoron Synchronicity is coincidence Death is final, by definition

Cynique and Del you might find the up coming Intelligence Squared Debate interesting. It will be streamed live on Wednesday (May 7th at 6:45PM), otherwise you can catch a podcast. The proposition is: Death Is Not Final "If consciousness is just the workings of neurons and synapses, how do we explain the phenomenon of near-death experience? By some accounts, about 3% of the U.S. population has had one: an out-of-body experience often characterized by remarkable visions and feelings of peace and joy, all while the physical body is close to death. To skeptics, there are more plausible, natural explanations, like oxygen deprivation. Is the prospect of an existence after death “real” and provable by science, or a construct of wishful thinking about our own mortality?" I've attended a number of these debates in the past. They are all really quite fascinating. On one occasion I attended an reception with the debaters. On this particular evening there were was a military general that was previously debating about the use of drones (something I'm against). After specking with this guy I got the sense that he really was sincerely interested in protecting the American people. He really changed my opinion on the use of drones. These are complicated and tough decisions these guys make. I don't envy them. In any event, you can cast your vote before the debate. Once the debate is over you vote again. After the debate the side that changed the most opinions wins. I voted for the proposition; I believe death is not final. So far, the majority (58%) are against the motion.

Pure structure, but so complex it appears chaotic.

Also, on Monday May 4th, we are interviewing Anika Noni Rose who stars in this film. If you have any questions for her please post them in a reply below. In Theaters: May 16, 2014 (Limited Release) R, 1 hr. 53 min., Drama, Directed By: Biyi Bandele, Written By: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Staring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Thandie Newton, Anika Noni Rose, John Boyega About the Film Olanna (Thandie Newton) and Kainene (Anika Noni Rose) are glamorous twins from a wealthy Nigerian family. Upon returning to a privileged city life in newly independent 1960s Nigeria after their expensive English education, the two women make very different choices. Olanna shocks her family by going to live with her lover, the "revolutionary professor" Odenigbo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and his devoted houseboy Ugwu (John Boyega) in the dusty university town of Nsukka; Kainene turns out to be a fiercely successful businesswoman when she takes over the family interests, and surprises even herself when she falls in love with Richard (Joseph Mawle), an English writer. Preoccupied by their romantic entanglements, and a betrayal between the sisters, the events of their life seem to loom larger than politics. However, they become caught up in the events of the Nigerian civil war, in which the lgbo people fought an impassioned struggle to establish Biafra as an independent republic, ending in chilling violence which shocked the entire world. About the Book A masterly, haunting new novel from a writer heralded by The Washington Post Book World as 'the 21st-century daughter of Chinua Achebe,' Half of a Yellow Sun re-creates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra's impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria in the 1960s, and the chilling violence that followed. With astonishing empathy and the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie weaves together the lives of three characters swept up in the turbulence of the decade. Thirteen-year-old Ugwu is employed as a houseboy for a university professor full of revolutionary zeal. Olanna is the professor's beautiful mistress, who has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos for a dusty university town and the charisma of her new lover. And Richard is a shy young Englishman in thrall to Olanna's twin sister, an enigmatic figure who refuses to belong to anyone. As Nigerian troops advance and the three must run for their lives, their ideals are severely tested, as are their loyalties to one another. Epic, ambitious, and triumphantly realized, Half of a Yellow Sun is a remarkable novel about moral responsibility, about the end of colonialism, about ethnic allegiances, about class and race'and the ways in which love can complicate them all. Adichie brilliantly evokes the promise and the devastating disappointments that marked this time and place, bringing us one of the most powerful, dramatic, and intensely emotional pictures of modern Africa that we have ever had.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, 22 April 2014 Fifteenth Caine Prize shortlist Announced The shortlist for the 2014 Caine Prize for African Writing has been announced today (Tuesday 22 April) by Nobel Prize winner and Patron of the Caine Prize Professor Wole Soyinka, as part of the opening ceremonies for the UNESCO World Book Capital 2014 celebration in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. To commemorate fifteen years of the Caine Prize this year, £500 will be awarded to each shortlisted writer. The Chair of judges, award-winning author Jackie Kay MBE described the shortlist as, “Compelling, lyrical, thought-provoking and engaging. From a daughter's unusual way of grieving for her father, to a memorable swim with a grandmother, a young boy's fascination with a gorilla's conversation, a dramatic faux family meeting, to a woman who is forced to sell her eggs, the subjects are as diverse as they are entertaining.” She added, “The standard of entries was exceptionally high so much so that it was actually very difficult for the judges to whittle it down to a shortlist of only five stories. We were heartened by how many entrants were drawn to explorations of a gay narrative. What a golden age for the African short story, and how exciting to see real originality - with so many writers bringing something different to the form." The winner of the £10,000 prize is to be announced at a celebratory dinner at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, on Monday 14 July. The 2014 shortlist comprises: Diane Awerbuck (South Africa) "Phosphorescence" in Cabin Fever (Umuzi, Cape Town. 2011) Efemia Chela (Ghana/Zambia) "Chicken" in Feast, Famine and Potluck (Short Story Day Africa, South Africa. 2013) Tendai Huchu (Zimbabwe) "The Intervention" in Open Road Review, issue 7, New Delhi. 2013 Billy Kahora (Kenya) "The Gorilla's Apprentice" in Granta (London. 2010) Okwiri Oduor (Kenya) "My Father's Head" in Feast, Famine and Potluck (Short Story Day Africa, South Africa. 2013) As always the stories will be available to read online on our website www.caineprize.com. For the first time an audio version of Tendai Huchu’s story is also available. The book of the 2014 prize will be published with the this year’s workshop stories in our forthcoming anthology which will be launched at the award dinner in July 2014 and published by New Internationalist (978-1-78026-174-4 print; 978-1-78026-175-1 ebook) and seven co-publishers in Africa. Alongside Jackie on the panel of judges this year are the distinguished novelist and playwright Gillian Slovo, Zimbabwean journalist Percy Zvomuya, Assistant Professor of English at the University of Georgetown Dr Nicole Rizzuto and the winner of the Caine Prize in 2001 Helon Habila. Once again, the winner of the £10,000 Caine Prize will be given the opportunity of taking up a month’s residence at Georgetown University, as a Writer-in-Residence at the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice. The award will cover all travel and living expenses. The winner will also be invited to take part in the Open Book Festival in Cape Town in September 2014, the Storymoja Hay Festival in Nairobi and the Ake Festival in Nigeria. Last year the Caine Prize was won by Nigerian writer Tope Folarin. He has subsequently signed up with the Lippincott Massie McQuilkin literary agency and is working on his first novel The Proximity of Distance. Dates for the Diary This year the shortlisted writers will be reading from their work at the Royal Over-Seas League on Thursday, 10 July at 7pm and at the Southbank Centre, on Sunday, 13 July at 5pm. On Friday, 11 July and Saturday, 12 July the shortlisted writers will also take part in the Africa Writes Festival at The British Library, organised by ASAUK and the Royal African Society. Notes to Editors The Caine Prize, awarded annually for African creative writing, is named after the late Sir Michael Caine, former Chairman of Booker plc and Chairman of the Booker Prize management committee for nearly 25 years. The Prize is awarded for a short story by an African writer published in English (indicative length 3,000 to 10,000 words). An “African writer” is normally taken to mean someone who was born in Africa, or who is a national of an African country, or who has a parent who is African by birth or nationality. The African winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Wole Soyinka, Nadine Gordimer and J M Coetzee, are Patrons of The Caine Prize. Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne is President of the Council, Ben Okri OBE is Vice President, Jonathan Taylor CBE is the Chairman and Ellah Wakatama Allfrey OBE is the Deputy Chairperson. The five shortlisted stories, alongside stories written at the Caine Prize workshops are published annually by New Internationalist (UK), Jacana Media (South Africa), Cassava Republic (Nigeria), Kwani? (Kenya), Sub-Saharan Publishers (Ghana), FEMRITE (Uganda), Bookworld Publishers (Zambia) and ‘amaBooks (Zimbabwe). Anthologies are available from the publishers or from the Africa Book Centre, African Books Collective or Amazon. The New Internationalist edition of ‘A Memory This Size and other stories’ was published on 1 July 2013. ebook) Previous winners are Sudan’s Leila Aboulela (2000), Nigerian Helon Habila (2001), Kenyan Binyavanga Wainaina (2002), Kenyan Yvonne Owuor (2003), Zimbabwean Brian Chikwava (2004), Nigerian Segun Afolabi (2005), South African Mary Watson (2006), Ugandan Monica Arac de Nyeko (2007), South African Henrietta Rose-Innes (2008), Nigerian EC Osondu (2009), Sierra Leonean Olufemi Terry (2010), Zimbabwean NoViolet Bulawayo (2011), Nigerian Rotimi Babatunde (2012) and Nigerian Tope Folarin (2013). The Caine Prize is principally supported by The Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, Miles Morland, the Booker Prize Foundation, Sigrid Rausing & Eric Abraham, Weatherly International plc, China Africa Resources, Exotix and CSL Stockbrokers. Other funders include the DOEN Foundation, The Beit Trust, British Council, The Lennox and Wyfold Foundation, the Royal Over-Seas League and Kenya Airways. World Book Capital is a title bestowed by UNESCO to a city in recognition of the quality of its programs to promote books and reading and the dedication of all players in the book industry. The designation runs from UNESCO's World Book and Copyright Day (April 23) of one year until April 22 of the following year. Port Harcourt, Nigeria holds the World Book Capital title for 2014 http://www.portharcourtworldbookcapital.org/ For further information please contact: Jenny Casswell Raitt Orr & Associates Tel: +44(0)207 250 8296/ Mob: +44(0)7796 131447 jenny@raittorr.co.uk Follow us on Twitter (@CainePrize), Facebook and www.caineprize.com Read our blog http://caineprize.blogspot.co.uk/

Cynique of course we can boycott. The Black players, 80+ of the freaking players can simply stop playing. In fact they could form their own league. I'm not talking about a Black only league, but one in which the people who provide the value share in most of the wealth. Now that will NEVER happen. And please don't get me started on the NAACP -- my God they were in the process of giving the known racist a 2nd life time achievement award!? There was NO pretense of giving a crap about Black folks. But why should I be surprised given our collective behavior.

Power List of Best-Selling African-American Books Releases Spring 2014 List The Power List, the quarterly compilation of best-selling books written or read by African Americans, released its Spring 2014 list today. The Power List is a joint project of AALBC.com, Cushcity.com and Mosaicbooks.com, three Web sites which have promoted African-American literature for more than a decade.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CdZJVXtdVQ

After reading a bit about the real life character for the on the Hollywood film Belle. The truly bizarre behavior of Americans in power past and present never ceases to amaze me.

You don't become wealthy in this nation being righteous. The ball players ain't about to quit, any more than a house negro would work in the field. The general population does not care, really. They will keep shelling out mega bucks buying high priced tickets and merchandise further enriching this guy even at the expense out own well being.