ONE MORE SONG OF LOVE

OSCAR HIJUELOS

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/31/business/media/hijuelos-novel-to-be-published-posthumously.html?_r=0

Gaza Update with Special Guest Tariq Abu Khdeir Come and hear first-hand from Tariq Abu Khdeir, the 15-year-old Palestinian-American arrested and beaten by Israeli police in Jerusalem last month. August 1 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm Busboys & Poets 5th & K 1025 5th Street NW, Washington, DC United States + Google Map The Institute for Policy Studies, Busboys & Poets, and the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation invite you to this Gaza update and discussion. Tariq Abu Khdeir is the 15-year-old Palestinian-American arrested and beaten by Israeli police in Jerusalem last month. Tariq’s cousin Mohammed Abu Khdeir was kidnapped and tortured to death by right-wing Israeli extremists the day before Tariq was detained. Tariq and his family will be visiting with members of Congress earlier in the day and will join us for this special Gaza discussion. Following Tariq’s presentation, we will have a roundtable discussion featuringPhyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies, Palestinian human rights attorney Noura Erekat, Retired Col. Ann Wright, Busboys’ own Andy Shallal, and others. We will talk about the context of the current assault, the consequences, the U.S. role and responsibility, and beyond. Free and Open to the public refreshments will be available during the event.

Events from theInstitute for Policy Studies: Ideas into Action for Peace, Justice, and the Environment Upcoming Events 7/31: Press Conference: Advocates Call for End of U.S. Support of African Tyrants 8/1: Gaza Update with Special Guest Tariq Abu Khdeir 10/2: The 4th Annual DC Palestinian Film and Arts Festival Was this e-mail forwarded to you? Subscribe to Events from IPS. Visit Our Website Front Page About IPS Projects IPS News Feed

Today's selection -- from What Hath God Wrought by Daniel Walker Howe. In 1815, Americans were young, went barefoot, and didn't take baths: "Life in America in 1815 was dirty, smelly, laborious, and uncomfortable. People spent most of their waking hours working, with scant opportunity for the development of individual talents and interests unrelated to farming. Cobbler-made shoes being expensive and uncomfortable, country people of ordinary means went barefoot much of the time. White people of both sexes wore heavy fabrics covering their bodies, even in the humid heat of summer, for they believed (correctly) sunshine bad for their skin. People usually owned few changes of clothes and stank of sweat. "Only the most fastidious bathed as often as once a week. Since water had to be carried from a spring or well and heated in a kettle, people gave themselves sponge baths, using the washtub. Some bathed once a year, in the spring, but as late as 1832, a New England country doctor complained that four out of five of his patients did not bathe from one year to the next. When washing themselves, people usually only rinsed off, saving their harsh, homemade soap for cleaning clothes. Inns did not provide soap to travelers.  "Having an outdoor privy signified a level of decency above those who simply relieved themselves in the woods or fields. Indoor light was scarce and precious; families made their own candles, smelly and smoky, from animal tallow. A single fireplace provided all the cooking and heating for a common household. During winter, everybody slept in the room with the fire, several in each bed. Privacy for married couples was a luxury. ...  "It was a young society: The census listed the median age as sixteen, and only one person in eight as over forty-three years old. Women bore children in agony and danger, making their life expectancy, unlike today, slightly shorter than that of men. Once born, infants often succumbed to diseases like diphtheria, scarlet fever, and whooping cough. One-third of white children and over half of black children died before reaching adulthood. The women had enough babies to beat these grim odds. To help them through labor, neighbors and trained midwives attended them. Doctors were in short supply, hospitals almost unknown. This proved a blessing in disguise, for physicians then did as much harm as good, and hospitals incubated infection. The upside of rural isolation was that epidemics did not spread easily."  What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (Oxford History of the United States) Author: Daniel Walker Howe Publisher: Oxford University Press Copyright 2007 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Pages 32, 37 If you wish to read further: Buy Now

Romantic Love | July 30, 2014 In Buddhist practice, we discover that mindful attention can reveal a deeper truth in whatever object we are paying attention to. The same is true in romantic love. When we use our attention to touch and open the deeper truth in a person, we not only catalyze the experience of love, we become love. The source of love is revealed to be within us; we no longer have to go looking for it somewhere outside. - Nicole Daedone, "Love Becomes Her"

WAR! WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/29/opinion/david-brooks-when-middle-east-conflicts-become-one.html?_r=0

The Washington City Paper reported today that Muriel Bowser is attempting to chop even more time off debate season.

First, she refused to debate before the ballot is set. Then she claimed she promised organizers at American University that their September 18 debate could be the first, but the organizers denied that commitment. Now she says waiting until September 18 is a commitment she made to herself.

We have 8 more days to collect the signatures we need to get on the ballot and put an end to these empty excuses for dodging debates.

Can I count on you to volunteer to collect signatures this weekend?

http://davidcatania.com/signature-collecting

You can pick up ballot petitions at the campaign headquarters anytime Thursday or Friday, and we’ll work with you to find a time and location over the weekend that’s convenient for you.

With ballot petitions due August 6th, this weekend is our last big chance to collect the signatures we need to qualify. Let’s get my name on the ballot now, so that we can move on to discussing the substantive issues at stake in this election.

Thank you,

David Catania

Baseball

After last night's Nats loss to the Marlins I started feeling like a Cubs fan. All year long one can see this team being average and a tad lucky. The only good thing about this team is that they play sweet defense. But last night there was the right fielder trying to make a circus catch with the score 6-0. What was he thinking?

BLACK WOMEN...

Peace Studies Journal just published “Inner Lions: Definitions of Peace in Black Women’s Memoirs, A Strength-based Model for Mental Health” (July 2014). JOURNAL LINK ~ ARTICLE LINK

WE INVITE YOU TO VISIT NOMMO's WEBSITE TO BOOK EMPOWERING SPEAKERS FOR YOUR NEXT SPECIAL EVENT. Event Planning Needs? Let NSB help make it magical. (click logo below) View this email in your browser JULY 'Purposeful Parenting Month' Nommo Highlights 2 Speakers - Fathers with the 411 on Successful Parenting E. Ethelbert Miller:  The Poetics of Parenting By: Eugene Holley, Jr.  Literary activist/poet E. Ethelbert Miller has been the artistic, behind-the-scenes mover and shaker in the Nation’s Capitol for four decades. The recipient of the 1995 O. B. Hardison Jr. Poetry Prize for excellence in poetry and teaching, Miller has been the director of the African American Resource Center at Howard University since 1974, and has published and co-edited over a dozen books of poetry, essays and two memoirs including First Light: New and Selected Poems, Fathering Words: The Making of an African-American Writer and The Fifth Inning.   Miller talked about how he raised his daughter Jasmine-Simone and his son, Nyere-Gibran, in the midst of writing of those powerful and poignant memoirs. “When I wrote my first memoir, Fathering Words, I wrote about the loneliness of Black fathers, Miller recalled. “I grew up with my father. But he was very traditional: we didn’t have ‘father-son’ conversations. He just told me what to do. When I wrote my second memoir, The Fifth Inning, Iinterviewed my son and daughter. I wanted to know what mistakes I might have made. It was a very sensitive thing. I’m not going to assume that I’m a good father. I don’t look at parenting in the abstract. I wanted to hear it from them. My kids came into the world with a set of expectations. I was aware of them having their own identity. I thought it important for me them to have a moral compass.” “When I look at my children, and their success, and how people view them, I feel I’ve done a very good job.” E. Ethelbert Miller's book, Fathering Words: The Making of an African American Writer is available for purchase at: http://nommospeakers.com/product/fathering-words/  Take a listen to his interview on The Diane Rhem Show (WAMU 88.5, NPR) talking about his memoir. http://shar.es/Lq0aC. NommoSpeaker, E. Ethelbert Miller is available for speaking engagements, poetry readings, webinars, or workshop bookings at http://nommospeakers.com/e-ethelbert-miller/.  Book early for National Poetry Month for poetry readings in April 2015. Miller is the Editor of the Poet Lore Magazine, which celebrates its 125th anniversary in September 2014 at the Folder Theater in Washington, DC. Share Tweet Forward +1 Acklyn Lynch: Successful Parenting By: Eugene Holley, Jr. The life and career of educator/essayist/cultural critic Acklyn Lynch, Ph.D., represents the successful inventions and dimensions of Black parenting in the Diaspora. For four decades, the Caribbean-born, metro DC-based polymath, who earned degrees at Howard, Harvard and Johns Hopkins Universities, taught at Howard, the University of Massachusetts, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He has written and lectured a plethora of subjects, from economics, culture and political science, to Pan-Africanism; child development and sports. He wrote a book of essays, Nightmare Overhanging Darkly: Essays on Black Culture and Resistance. But his greatest works are his daughter, Pilar, an international education consultant who taught in the Caribbean, Africa, and China; and his son, the Olympic gymnast Jair Lynch, who both received the same kind of holistic parenting he received from three major sources growing in Port-Of-Spain, Trinidad. “The first person for me was my mother,” He fondly recalled “The second person was my school teacher, Mr. Grandison of Eastern Boys School, who introduced me to Duke Ellington, Paul Robeson, and Richard Wright.  And three, There were families like [writer/intellectual] CLR James’ family and the Constantine family. The parents of that era – from turn of the twentieth century, to the Depression era – they had a vision of tomorrow, based on two principles: religion-spirituality, and education. You had to perform well. You had to understand what education meant. Education was an exercise of discipline and a projection of what I wanted to be.” Though he lived in a colonial situation, Lynch grew up in a Black community that functioned as an extended family that stressed all aspects of education, in and beyond the classroom; something he passed on to his two children. “Education was not simply something you learned in school,” Lynch remembered. “Our parents also understood the value of sports. You had to be athletic. You had to be healthy. Secondly, [they stressed] the arts: dance, carnival, playing Mas, and singing. I taught my son Jair, all of that. When he decided to become a world-class gymnast, I said ‘you gotta swing, brother; you gotta dance.’ You have to use your artistic imagination, in order to underlie your scientific knowledge.” “The rest was history.”  View Dr. Ackyn Lynch talking about his formula for parenting. http://youtu.be/_pjwXoFT6yY *(Click link or Click on Picture) Copyright © *2014|* *|Nommo Speakers Bureau, LLC|*, All rights reserved. *|Nommo 2. July 2014 |* *|Purposeful Parenting Month NSB Profiles - 7/2014|* For Bookings or Interviews Contact Nommo: *| www.nommospeakersbureau.com | info@nommospeakers.com| (202)232-3400|* unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences

THE E-DAD

http://nommospeakers.com/blog/purposeful-parenting-month-july-nommo-profiles-e-ethelbert-miller/

C.L.R.JAMES

I've started working with Paul Buhle and Milton Knight on a C.L.R. James comic.
It's a wonderful project in need of support.
We're looking for a publisher. Spread the word.

See link:
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/23254-clr-james-back-in-style-black-in-style-a-review-and-a-comic?tmpl=component&print=1

BLUE DEATH

A dead raccoon

 (I thought)

asleep outside ( my door)

I discover on (my way)

to discard (my trash).

A blue

recycle bin

in (my hands).

  -  E. Ethelbert Miller

POETRY AND PEACE:

We Begin Here: Poems for Palestine and Lebanon

                                

IS THAT A POEM IN YOUR POCKET OR DO YOU JUST WANT TO BE POET LAUREATE?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/28/arts/poet-laureates-multiply-but-job-requirements-vary-widely.html?_r=0

I went to the movies and saw Lucy.
It's a movie with a good beginning and then you want to turn your mind off to the rest of it.
When is Morgan Freeman going to turn down scripts like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN7ksFEVO9U

Furious Love

(for Ethelbert Miller, who coined the phrase)

my friend said,

now is the time for furious love,

I agree,

what could be better

than to make love furiously,

or to have furious love,

not just for one person,

but for all of mankind

as for me,

I’d opt for both

© sam hamod, 7.27.14

-- 

The cease fire ends and the bombs fall again
If we desire peace now is the time for furious love.

  - E. Ethelbert Miller

THE WORLD WAS ONCE AN APPLE

The world falls apart

losing its buttons.

War undresses citizens

and soldiers alike.

Everyone is wounded

by hatred

and bleeding

from love.

We are Adam

and Eve thinking

about that

last fuck

wishing we could 

start all over again.

   - E. Ethelbert Miller

Found Poem # 1

Pope 

Francis

had lunch

with Vatican

workers on 

Friday.

He walked

into the cafeteria

unannounced

and lined up

tray in hand.

(New York Times/7-26-2014)

Yes, that was Kate (Damon)  and I eating our muffins yesterday at the Uprising Muffin Company (1817 7th Street, NW). This is a cool place located right next to the HU Metro Station (Green Line). Kate is cool too.

TRIBUTE TO ESSEX HEMPHILL

https://www.facebook.com/events/436293586513433/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxfILbV1JTc

HAVE POEMS WILL TRAVEL

http://nommospeakers.com/e-ethelbert-miller/

THE SCHOLARS - UDC-TV

It looks like I will be returning to the UDC television studio in late November or early December. Upgrades and renovations are taking place at the station. This will give me additional time to do research and prepare for my guests.

http://www.udc.edu/news/udc%E2%80%99s_new_cable_tvseries_%E2%80%9Cthe_scholars%E2%80%9D

JULY 24, 2014      The immigration debate has exploded again in the United States, this time around the tens of thousands of minors detained at the U.S.-Mexico border.  More than half of these children are fleeing violence and threats at home in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. As FPIF columnist Laura Carlsen explains in Blowback on the Border, many families have concluded that the children are safer making the journey to the United States than staying at home. And, as Nathalie Baptiste points out, the United States is partly responsible for the conditions of poverty and violence that serve as the push factors for the migration. The refugee crisis in Syria is reaching cataclysmic proportions. Farrah Hassan, who visited refugee camps in Syria back in 2003, notes that over the last five years, the country has gone from the second largest host of refugees to the second largest producer of them. Meanwhile, Hillary Margolis provides snapshots of five courageous women activists from Syria, several of whom have already been forced to leave the country. Also this week at FPIF, Didier Jacobs urges a reset of relations with Iran, Phyllis Bennis provides an update from Gaza, and Ved Singh reviews a book on the challenges of exiting from state-building operations.  Finally, in this week's World Beat column, I look at the crossfire of accusations and counter-accusations surrounding the downing of Malaysian jet liner MH17 in Ukraine and compare the situation to the war that nearly took place in 1983 between the United States and Soviet Union. In our Focal Points blog, Latifah Azlan looks at how the Malaysian government is respondingand Russ Wellen asks questions about Ukraine's fateful decision not to close off its airspace. John Feffer Director, Foreign Policy In Focus World Beat MH17: Cold War Replay? John Feffer Unless a plane completely disappears—a truly unlikely scenario until it happened to another Malaysian airliner back in March—it’s usually possible to get to the bottom of air disasters with the help of black box recordings, satellite data, and the scraps of wreckage. But it takes time to sift through the evidence. And during that time, all manner of wild speculation can take place. Sometimes that speculation is idle and produces only flame wars on the Internet. But sometimes it can lead to a very dangerous escalation in tensions between armed combatants. Read more…   FPIF Features Refugee Crisis: The Stunning Collapse of Syria’s Safe Spaces Farrah Hassen In just five years, Syria has gone from being the world’s second-largest host of refugees to the second-largest producer of them. Women and the War In Syria Hillary Margolis Meet five women who are bearing the burden of conflict in Syria and persevering in spite of it. Reset Relations with Iran Didier Jacobs If President Obama wants his legacy to be as a peacemaker, Iran must be the place to start. Child Migrants Are Refugees the U.S. Helped Create Nathalie Baptiste Central American children fleeing poverty and gang violence are refugees—often from situations U.S. policies have helped to create—and they should be treated as such. Blowback on the Border: America’s Child Refugee Crisis Laura Carlsen Decades of short-sighted, inhumane U.S. policies have brought a child refugee crisis to America's door. NBC Pulls Its Best Journalist from Gaza Just as Israel Invades Phyllis Bennis With Israeli tanks rolling into Gaza, NBC has pulled the reporter who has done more than any other to show the human costs of the conflict there. When and How to End a Foreign Intervention Ved Singh Oxford professor Richard Caplan examines the challenges of exiting from state-building operations. America’s Border Fascism Todd Miller Border Patrol practices have created extensive "constitution-free zones" where civil liberties are routinely infringed. Focal Points Blog Malaysia Regains Its Footing Amid Intensifying Hostilities in Ukraine Latifah AzlanAfter learning airline crisis management the hard way, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has quickly taken control of the investigation of MH17. Israel’s Operation in Gaza: Terrorism by Any Other Name Adil E. ShamooIsrael is obviously determined to subjugate Gazans by instilling fear. Scotland Deserves to Be Independent Sufyan bin UzayrScotland has a chance to obtain what’s been denied its people: sustainable economic growth, social justice, and, most of all, a Scotland-first approach. Red Carpet Into Harm’s Way Rolled Out for Flight MH17 Russ Wellen Between Ukraine airline officials keeping planes flying too low and the pilot diverting his plane into the vicinity of the military transport, MH17’s fate was sealed. Suddenly Putin Blaming Ukraine for Flight 17 Makes a Shred of Sense Russ Wellen The Russian prime minister may still bear some of the blame, though. Hungary’s U-Turn John FefferHungary, once a liberal democracy, regressed to a semi-autocratic regime. The Most Obvious Way for Iraq to Fend Off ISIS Russ WellenIraq President Nouri al-Maliki’s attention remains divided. Support FPIF! To protect our independence, we never run ads on FPIF. We take no money from governments or corporations. We survive on donations from readers like you. We’re a small non-profit with a tiny staff, so your dollars go a long way. Donate today!