MIDDLE EAST NEWS:

Forwarded on Behalf of the Institute for Palestine Studies

This column by independent analyst and IPS Senior Fellow Nadia Hijab was published in the print edition of the International Herald Tribune and in the online Global Edition of The New York Times (global.nytimes.com). The opinions in this piece are her own. Hijab is a syndicated columnist for Agence Global.

The Obama Difference

By Nadia Hijab

In the days since Barack Obama's speech in Cairo last week there has been a desperate search for substance in between the lines of a great performance. Where are the policies that can change the lives of people in the Middle East hit by the wars and occupations initiated or supported by the United States?

Many have read much into Obama's speech - that was part of its genius - but it contained no policy announcements. That does not mean there are no policies. The Obama administration works differently from its predecessors in at least three ways.

First, it doesn't do business on the basis of public pronouncements. There will, for example, be no reprise of Bush senior's public appeal to the American people that he was "one little lonely guy" facing up to a thousand lobbyists from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

At that time, the Bush administration wanted Israel to attend the Madrid peace conference in the wake of the 1990-91 Gulf war. The White House also announced its intention to tie loan guarantees to Israel to ending settlement activity. In contrast, the Obama administration looks unlikely to make any public threats.

Second, the Obama administration speaks with one voice. The same tough line - settlements must stop, peace must start - is delivered by Mr. Obama; Vice President Joe Biden, who used to call himself a Zionist; Hillary Clinton, the former stridently pro-Israel junior senator from New York; Rahm Emanuel, who twice volunteered for the Israeli Army; the national security adviser, General James Jones; and the special envoy, George Mitchell.

This seamless act makes it hard for right-wing pro-Israel forces to drive in a policy wedge. This is a far cry from Bush junior's administration, when Vice President Dick Cheney and the deputy national security advisor Elliot Abrams actively undermined Condoleezza Rice's efforts.

Third, this is an administration that does its homework. It has studied the rise and fall of previous peace efforts, including Bill Clinton's hasty and ill-prepared convening of the Camp David summit in 2000. By contrast, weeks before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Washington in May, the Obama team reportedly briefed key Democrats in Congress about possible disagreements with Israel.

When Mr. Netanyahu visited Capitol Hill, expecting to be shielded from the administration, Haaretz reported that he was "stunned" by a coordinated attack against his stand on settlements. Several leading lawmakers, including Jewish ones, said they thought Mr. Netanyahu should be "very, very aware of the concerns of the administration and Congress."

True, Aipac secured 329 Congressional signatures on a letter urging Mr. Obama to pursue peace as "a devoted friend to Israel." But the warnings of senior lawmakers still carry weight.

Meanwhile, it is worth noting some of the policy shifts, however small. For instance, Israelis maintain that they had an understanding with the Bush administration supporting "natural growth" in the settlements. Hillary Clinton shot this down in no uncertain terms. The Obama administration, she pointed out, had been given the official records by the outgoing Bush administration, and there "is no memorialization of any informal and oral agreements. If they did occur, which, of course, people say they did, they did not become part of the official position of the United States Government."

As for the 2004 Bush exchange of letters with former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that promised Israel it could have the major settlement blocs plus Jerusalem and minus the Palestinian refugees, the State Department spokesman steadfastly side-stepped a journalist's questions as to whether or not the letters were binding.

So, yes, nothing has changed on the ground yet. But because of the way it works, the Obama administration has a much better chance of bringing peace to the Middle East than its predecessors. Still, before breaking out the champagne, remember that Mr. Obama works within the boundaries of the American establishment.

Within those narrow confines and given the present Israeli-Palestinian power imbalance, the Palestinians are likely to secure a bare minimum of rights while Israel walks off with the rest. Unless, that is, the Palestinians can rapidly tilt the balance in their favor - or unless Israel's intransigence does it for them.

For rights and permissions, contact Agence Global rights@agenceglobal.com, 1.336.686.9002 or 1.212.731.0757

Published by Agence Global and distributed by the Institute for Palestine Studies
The Institute has produced authoritative studies on Palestinian affairs and the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1963. Its flagship Journal of Palestine Studies is published by the University of California Press.
Email contact palestinestudies@mail.democracyinaction.org

SHOULD WE IMPORT THIS IDEA?

The Chinese confined Mayor Nagin (N.O) to his hotel room because of possible swine flu symptoms.
Call FEMA for room service?

POEMS FROM THE NOTEBOOK

Daily Construction

Resting on the ground, two shirts resting.
Working on the roof, two men working.

- E. Ethelbert Miller

OH, SHELBY, STEELE AWAY, PLEASE...

SHELBY STEELE:

President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court points to a dilemma that will likely plague his presidency: How does a "post-racialist" president play identity politics?

What is most notable about the Sotomayor nomination is its almost perfect predictability. Somehow we all simply know -- like it or not -- that Hispanics are now overdue for the gravitas of high office. And our new post-racialist president is especially attuned to this chance to have a "first" under his belt, not to mention the chance to further secure the Hispanic vote. And yet it was precisely the American longing for post-racialism -- relief from this sort of racial calculating -- that lifted Mr. Obama into office.

The Sotomayor nomination commits the cardinal sin of identity politics: It seeks to elevate people more for the political currency of their gender and ethnicity than for their individual merit. (Here, too, is the ugly faithlessness in minority merit that always underlies such maneuverings.) Mr. Obama is promising one thing and practicing another, using his interracial background to suggest an America delivered from racial corruption even as he practices a crude form of racial patronage. From America's first black president, and a man promising the "new," we get a Supreme Court nomination that is both unoriginal and hackneyed.

Associated Press

Sonia Sotomayor and Barack Obama

This contradiction has always been at the heart of the Obama story. On the one hand there was the 2004 Democratic Convention speech proclaiming "only one America." And on the other hand there was the race-baiting of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Does this most powerful man on earth know himself well enough to resolve this contradiction and point the way to a genuinely post-racial America?

The Sotomayor nomination suggests not. Throughout her career Judge Sotomayor has demonstrated a Hispanic chauvinism so extreme that it sometimes crosses into outright claims of racial supremacy, as in 2001 when she said in a lecture at the University of California, Berkeley, "a wise Latina woman . . . would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male."

The White House acknowledges that this now famous statement -- both racist and dim-witted -- was turned up in the vetting process. So we can only assume that the president was aware of it, as well as Judge Sotomayor's career-long claim that ethnicity and gender are virtual determinisms in judging: We need diversity because, as she said in her Berkeley lecture, "inherent physiological or cultural differences . . . make a difference in our judging." The nine white male justices who decided the Brown school-desegregation case in 1954 might have felt otherwise, as would a president seeking to lead us toward a new, post-racial society.

But of course "post-racialism" is not a real idea. It is an impression, a chimera that grows out of a very specific racial manipulation that I have called "bargaining." Here the minority makes a bargain with white society: I will not "guilt" you with America's centuries of racism if you will not hold my minority status against me. Whites love this bargain because it allows them to feel above America's racist past and, therefore, immune to charges of racism. By embracing the bargainer they embrace the impression of a world beyond racial division, a world in which whites are innocent and minorities carry no anger. This is the impression that animates bargainers like Mr. Obama or Oprah Winfrey with an irresistible charisma. Even if post-racialism is an obvious illusion -- a bargainer's trick as it were -- whites are flattered by believing in it.

But the Sotomayor nomination shows that Mr. Obama has no idea what a post-racial society would look like. In selling himself as a candidate to the American public he is a gifted bargainer beautifully turned out in post-racial impressionism. But in the real world of Supreme Court nominations, where there is a chance to actually bring some of that idealism down to earth, he chooses a hardened, divisive and race-focused veteran of the culture wars he claims to transcend.

I have called Mr. Obama a bound man because he cannot win white support without bargaining and he cannot maintain minority support without playing the very identity politics that injure him with whites. The latter form of politics is grounded in being what I call a challenger -- i.e., someone who presumes that whites are racist until they prove otherwise by granting preferences of some kind to minorities. Whites quietly seethe at challengers like Jesse Jackson who use the moral authority of their race's historic grievance to muscle for preferential treatment. Mr. Obama has been loved precisely because he was an anti-Jackson, a bargainer who grants them innocence before asking for their support. So when Mr. Obama plays identity politics -- as in the Sotomayor nomination -- he starts to look too much like the challenger. Still, if he doesn't allow identity to trump merit so that he can elevate people like Judge Sotomayor, he angers the minorities who so lavishly supported him. So far he is more the captive of America's ongoing racial neurosis than the man who might liberate us from it.

Judge Sotomayor is the archetypal challenger. Challengers see the moral authority that comes from their group's historic grievance as an entitlement to immediate parity with whites -- whether or not their group has actually earned this parity through development. If their group is not yet competitive with whites, the moral authority that comes from their grievance should be allowed to compensate for what they lack in development. This creates a terrible corruption in which the group's historic grievance is allowed to count as individual merit. And so a perverse incentive is created: Weakness and victimization are rewarded over development. Better to be a troublemaker than to pursue excellence.

Sonia Sotomayor is of the generation of minorities that came of age under the hegemony of this perverse incentive. For this generation, challenging and protesting were careerism itself. This is why middle- and upper middle-class minorities are often more militant than poor and working-class minorities. America's institutions -- universities, government agencies, the media and even corporations -- reward their grievance. Minority intellectuals, especially, have been rewarded for theories that justify grievance.

And here we come to Judge Sotomayor's favorite such ingenuity: disparate impact. In the now celebrated Ricci case the city of New Haven, Conn., threw out a paper and pencil test that firefighters were required to take for promotion because so few minorities passed it. In other words, the test had a disparate and negative impact on minorities, so the lead plaintiff, Frank Ricci -- a white male with dyslexia who worked 10 hours a day to pass the test at a high level -- was effectively denied promotion because he was white. Judge Sotomayor supported the city's decision to throw out the test undoubtedly because of her commitment to disparate impact -- a concept that invariably makes whites accountable for minority mediocrity.

Challengers are essentially team players. Their deepest atavistic connection is to their aggrieved race, ethnicity or gender. Toward the larger society that now often elevates and privileges them, they carry a lingering bad faith -- and sometimes a cavalier disregard where whites are concerned, as with Judge Sotomayor in the Ricci case.

With the Sotomayor nomination, Mr. Obama has made the same mistake his wife made in her "This is the first time I am proud of my country" remark: bad faith toward an America that has shown him only good faith.

Mr. Steele, a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, is the author, most recently, of "A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win" (Free Press, 2007).

FREE EUNA LEE AND LORA LING!

The O Report:

Conservatives keep talking about Obama's recent trip to the Middle East as being an "apology tour." What folks have not discussed is the influence of race on U.S. Foreign Policy. Remember when it was believed black people should only be on the world stage if they were dancing? What we are beginning to see under the Obama Administration is the U.S. looking at the world through the eyes of a leader of color. No longer is the President of the US a stranger in a strange land. Obama can connect with people in Kenya as well as Indonesia. Previous American presidents mostly came in contact with people of color if they had served in the military and fought a war, played with a black guy on a college team, or invited an African American leader to dinner. If we are going to discuss topics like white privilege and racism within the US, then it's only logical to see how this plays out in the world arena. We can't treat other nations like they are butlers and maids. We can't continue to believe Palestinians are invisible as Native Americans. Sooner or later we must realize that "leaders" of color might have a different worldview. How can we explain a concept of Pan-Africanism without it? Look for a paradigm shift in American foreign policy under Obama (and Clinton). All this "apology tour" stuff sounds like white people complaining in one of those old segregated country clubs. Yes, the world is changing. Not only is racism taking a punch in the belly, but Tiger Woods has a golf club.

From PORNPIMOL KANCHANALAK in Bangkok:


http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/06/05/opinion/opinion_30104461.php

une 8, 2009
Tricycle's Daily Dharma

Change yourself, change the world

Trying to change the world without changing our mind is like trying to clean the dirty face we see in the mirror by scrubbing the glass. However vigorously we clean it, our reflection will not improve. Only by washing our own face and combing our own unkempt hair can we alter the image. Similarly, if we want to help create conditions that foster peace and well-being in the world, we first need to reflect these qualities ourselves.

–Lama Shenpen Drolma, from Change of Heart: The Bodhisattva Peace Training of Chagdud Tulku (Padma)

Started reading Tye's biography on Satchel Paige. Laughed when I read what Satchel's mother once said:

If you tell a lie, always rehearse it. If it don't sound good to you, it won't sound good to anybody else.

Media Production Idea:
If I had access to the mainstream media, I would host an hour exchange on world issues (including sports) between President Obama and former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley. I was a Bradley supporter back in 2000. Spoke to him briefly on an airplane once...
It would be nice to get these two guys chatting in public.

Ichiro Watch:
2 hits last night.

Projection: He should be leading the AL in batting by the end of this month.
Many multiple hit games this season. If he can avoid a summer slump he might begin to flirt with hitting .400.
If he is hitting over .380 in late August, he might just have a chance. Is it too early to talk about this? Not really. While the averages of many batters are going down, Ichiro's is steadily going up. Another long hitting streak would be sweet.

"In baseball, even the best hitters fail seven of ten times, and of those seven failures there are different reasons why. Some are personal failures, others are losses to the pitcher. You just get beat. In those personal failures, I felt I could have done better." Source: Baseball Digest (November 2002 Issue)

- Ichiro Suzuki

POEMS FROM THE NOTEBOOK

I JUST DROPPED BY

Surrounding the red cottage
are arms of trees. The sun
can only leave a note. I pull
the latch on the gate. A sound
of surprise. There is a key in
my pocket waiting to say hello.

- E. Ethelbert Miller

POEMS FROM THE NOTEBOOK

SMALL THINGS

Today I watched men
assemble boats. Push
them into the water.
There are postcards
that describe this.
The wind is a stamp.

- E. Ethelbert Miller

News from Sweet Holly Bass:

Thomas Sayers Ellis, author of The Maverick Room, continues the Lyrical City writing workshop series with “Inside the Pocket…City as Rhythm.” The workshop will take place on Sunday June 14 from 2:30-5:00pm at the Washington Historical Society, 801 K St. NW, in the Green Room. The cost is $25 and pre-registration is required.

Inside the Pocket…City as Rhythm: Lyrical City Writing Workshop #3

Sunday June 14, 2:30-5:00pm, Historical Society of Washington, DC, 801 K St. NW
Workshop taught by Thomas Sayers Ellis
Every place on earth has its own rhythm, its own tempo, its own beat. In DC, that beat is gogo. Participants will learn how to listen to the city’s heartbeat and incorporate its pulse into their writing. There will be some discussion of gogo, its history and evolution as well as attention paid to speech rhythms and vocabulary particular to DC. Writing exercises will encourage participants to break out of old habits and engage with language in new ways.

Bio
Thomas Sayers Ellis was born and raised in Washington, DC, where he attended Paul Laurence Dunbar High School. He co-founded The Dark Room Collective in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1988 and earned an MFA from Brown University in 1995. His first, full collection, The Maverick Room, was published by Graywolf Press in 2005 and awarded The 2006 John C. Zacharis First Book Award. He currently teaches Creative Writing at Sarah Lawrence College.

To apply for any of the workshops, please send an email to langstondays@gmail.com with:
1. your name
2. a brief statement (50-150 words) explaining what you hope to get out of the workshop
3. writing sample (one poem or short prose piece)
Applicants may attend up to two workshops. If applying for more than one workshop, please list three choices in order of preference.

Accepted applicants will be notified on how to make advance payment.

About Lyrical City
Lyrical City is a six-part writing workshop series facilitated by outstanding writers with a strong DC connection. The workshops focus on the African-American poetry tradition in DC and various cultural aspects of the city. The workshops are open to all. Participation is limited to 12 people. The cost of each workshop is $25. Some partial scholarships are available. You may apply for any workshop in the series, but you may attend no more than two. This series is funded by the DC Arts Commission with public monies and as such we are committed to bringing in a wide spectrum of the community. Feel free to forward this message to friends. Registrations are accepted on a rolling basis, so the earlier you apply, the better your chances.
Upcoming workshops:
7/5, Toni Asante Lightfoot, Jean Toomer in DC… City as Identity
8/23, Sharan Strange, The Personal is National…City as Monument
9/6, Holly Bass, City as Soundscape
For full workshop descriptions and faculty bios see attachment.

This workshop is funded in part by the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

THE E MAG

Treve de blues.
- Leon Damas

Compassion is my art.
- Grace A. Ali

God makes stars. It's up to producers to find them.
- Samuel Goldwyn


WELCOME TO THE E MAG. An introduction into the words of others.

TODAY MY GUEST IS Dr. Florence Marfo.

What follows is an outline of a project she is starting in England:

MARFO:

The International Studies Foundation (ISF) - a company limited by guarantee (non-profit) – has been set up to promote academic studies, particularly amongst Britain’s 13 to 19 year olds. GCSE and A level qualifications in Black History and Culture through Literature, Film and Lyrics will offer students the possibility of furthering their academic careers in this or other fields.

The ISF was established to fill the gap in the educational market in Black academia. For several years there has been a tendency to approach Black Studies as remedial (offered to black students who disengage from formal education in schools) and alternative, but not academic (offered to increase students’ general knowledge about black heroes past and present). The result of this has been that few students leave formal education conversant on black literature, film and lyrics that could fit into the academic curriculum.

ISF plans to address this shortcoming by integrating Black Studies into academia, so that students of all ethnicities will be equipped to discuss the works of Wole Soyinka and Earnest Gaines in the same way that they might be able to discuss those of Thomas Keneally and Aldous Huxley.

The ISF will design the curriculum of Black History and Culture through Literature, Film and Lyrics at GCSE (i.e. end-of-school) and A level (i.e.pre-university), pilot both levels of the course, seek accreditation as an examining body for both levels, sell study aids, and promote the dissemination of related material.

This course will engage with and improve the academic achievement of those students who leave Secondary Education being only moderately interested and only doing moderately well, and who increasingly opt out of formal academic studies from this stage. After following the course and obtaining the end-of-course qualification, students will have widened their career options, choosing to be writers as well as entertainers, academics of literature as well as teachers, and explorers of Black cultures in Latin America as well as in the US and Britain.

The course will discuss the literary, cinematographic and lyrical productions of black-populated communities in Africa, the Americas and Europe. It will mirror study of English literature by relating the taught text to its socio-literary context. In the same way that a GCSE English literature course might introduce pupils to a Russian novel in translation and explore the text according to the conventions of literary analysis in Britain, so too would this methodology be transferred to Black Cultures and History through Literature Film and Lyrics. On completion of the course the student will have developed conventional essay-writing skills. In addition, the course will look at less conventional material such as performance poetry.

The contextualisation that an entire course on the subject facilitates, and the diversity of material that it introduces to the young learner go a significant step further than the national curriculum, which does not oblige students to learn an ethnic text, and arguably does not allow sufficient time to the re-exploration of firmly held stereotypes.

In addition to those individuals who follow the course, British society as a whole is also a potential beneficiary. Black and academia will no longer appear to be paradoxes, but compatible concepts that will encourage further cultural exploration and interaction with Black communities worldwide.

Words from Jan Willis:

I wake up every morning in black skin. This fact brings with it, for me, a sense of responsiblity. I feel that I have to go out into the world being an example, an embodiment of strength and confidence for the race, even when, inside, I don't always feel that way. It is, sometimes, a heavy burden. Heavier still is the blanket objectification that all blacks, by virtue of their skin alone, endure.

But we do not do it alone. We do it with the power and strength of the ancestors, with the kindness of friends, in the care of angels, with the Buddhas' and God's love. We live and we contribute.

excerpt from DREAMING ME: From Baptist to Buddhist, One Woman's Spiritual Journey.

Tricycle's Daily Dharma

Bring Your Spiritual Traditions Together

Many Westerners attracted to Buddhist practice have abandoned their own spiritual traditions. They reject the churches and clergy of their own traditions because they feel constricted and uncomfortable with the attitudes and practices they have encountered there. They have suffered within their own tradition and so have sought another. They approach Buddhist practice with the hope of replacing their own tradition and may wish to break away from their own tradition forever.

According to Buddhist wisdom, such wishing is in vain. A person severed from her own culture and traditions is like a tree pulled out by the roots. Such a person will find it hard to be happy. Buddhist practice can offer effective means to heal, reconcile, and reunite with one’s blood and spiritual families, in order to discover the precious gems in one’s own traditions. Thanks to the practice, people will see that Buddhism and their own spiritual tradition have many things in common, and therefore it is not necessary to reject their own spiritual tradition. They will see that there are things that need to be transformed in Buddhism as well as in their own tradition.

–Thich Nhat Hanh, from Teachings on Love (Parallax Press)

---

Ichiro Watch:
3 hits last night
Second in batting in the AL.

NEXT STOP PERU?

Let's keep our eyes on the movement of Indigenous people in Peru. They are protesting the government's plan to open vast tracts of the rain forest to oil drilling, logging and hydroelectric dams. Of course the folks living on the land was never consulted. President Garcia is trying to lure investment to the region. But at what price? Who will benefit? Coastal Peru? This looks like the early rounds of a fight that could go several years. Start counting the dead...

HELLO DARKNESS MY OLD FRIEND...

On June 12th millions of people will be looking at a blank screen. That's the date for the switch from analog to digital. In the dark will be lower-income families, the elderly and handicapped. Blankness will also visit those homes where little or no English is spoken.

I'm waiting for Fox News to provide a discount on converter boxes. What better way to convert people to their way of thinking...
Oh, and blame Obama if you don't have a picture - Right?

If you want consumer help with upgrading go to: www.dtv.gov or call the government hot line on the transition at 1-888-CALLFCC (1-888-225-5322).

Of course folks might not tell you those little secrets that a digital signal can be affected by topography, weather and even heavy auto traffic.

Alyssa Stanton - first African American woman to be ordained as a rabbi. Her synagogue will be in Greenville, North Carolina. A nice profile of her is in The New York Times (6/6/09).

POEMS FROM THE NOTEBOOK


Morning Meditation for Poets

(for Giovanni)

Try to let go of everything.
Think only of the moment.
Let go of your poems.

- E. Ethelbert Miller

POEMS FROM THE NOTEBOOK

Cottage Suite for Two

Jazz keeps me company.
This could be Paris.

I tap the table with my fingers.
I must be falling in love.

- E. Ethelbert Miller

POEMS FROM THE NOTEBOOK

Saturday at the Cottage

I recycle bottles and cans
Dirty clothes I take to the basement
I have only a few things to wash

Read all labels
Happiness comes with instructions

POEMS FROM THE NOTEBOOK

Under A Provincetown Sky

Alone after the rain.
Each puddle a mirror.
I leap without falling.

- E. Ethelbert Miller

Ichiro Watch:

The streak is over.
No hits last night.
One begins again.

Gone?
Sheryl Swoopes is no longer in the W.N.B. A.
I find this strange. She was waived by the Seattle Storm back in January. She never signed with another club. Swoopes was once the face of the W.N.B.A. It seems once she made her private life public the league moved away from her. Hmmm. No basketball in the closet?

Gordon Parks:
More than 4,000 prints and 20,000 negatives of the work of photographer Gordon Parks have been acquired by the State University of New York's Purchase College.
Parks died in 2006.
I met him once when we did a program together at the Corcoran Museum.

NEW THINK?
Reading the newspapers one day after Obama's Cairo speech, it's obvious we need New Think. Keep in mind we are listening to some of the same pundits who didn't expect this guy to be president. Why should we listen to them now? New Think was voted in last year. New Think is what Fox News and conservatives are afraid of. They will only embrace New Think if they can discover lucrative contracts and old ways of making new money. New Think is already emerging around Cuba. Look for the US auto industry and cell phones companies to profit from this new market. I expect major league baseball to play a few exhibition games in Havana in two - three years. New Think has to come to the Middle East. Israel and Hamas are going to have to move into the new century. Israel has a right to exist. Palestinians need a homeland. Let's go and buy our tickets. OK? Why play the old political games? But let's be honest, it's difficult to embrace New Think if you had love ones killed by bombs or if you dress each day without a limb. No way, the average person learns to forgive unless they have a Buddha heart and head. Many people are going to have scars and wounds that won't heal. New Think can only outline a future that's needed. It's like talking about global warming. We know we need to save the planet starting today. Unfortunately many of us are not going to take those first small steps. Maybe our children will. New Think needs a New Generation. I know that sounds like a Pepsi slogan but it's true. When I monitor the news media, I just want to cry. People are either idiots, bigots or silly in the head. Back to Obama. The guy only gave a speech in Cairo. Anyone looking for specific details needs to look in the mirror. If we want change in the Middle East, it will mean voting in leaders who will New Think. New Think is needed this weekend in Lebanon. New Think later this month in Iran. New Think around the world producing New Leaders who will not be govern by the rhetoric of the past. Maybe there is going to be an Obama Era. Maybe one day people around the world will talk about this period of Enlightenment. A time when New Think was just beginning.

WHERE ARE THOSE BEAUTIFUL LEGS OF LONG DIVISION?

He was bad with numbers.

He was a 1.
She was the one.

They became:

2 walking
2 sitting

2 undressing
2 loving (?)

He was 1 who 1 day wanted 2.

The blues taught him math.
The blues are never added or subtracted.
The blues multiply.

A good woman will count to 10 before leaving 1.


- E. Ethelbert Miller

I love the entanglings of genitals,
and out of blood and love I carved my poems.

- Neruda

So Much Happens In A Day

I sit in a little library
room reading Neruda's
love poems. I found his
book among the new
arrivals. Why are the
shelves empty, yet
so full?

- E. Ethelbert Miller

Pablo Neruda

Quote of the Day:

"When we played it was all about style. You came in a serious suit, played a serious game, and then got in a serious car with a serious girl."

- Darryl Dawkins, former NBA Star.

THE FIRECRACKER NEXT TIME
I must be missing something in all this debate around torture. Unless,I'm overlooking something it seems to be very much a part of our sad human condition. Growing up in the South Bronx my first introduction to torture, were bad kids placing firecrackers in the butts of cats. Where are those kids now? Are they CEOs somewhere? Oh, and I remember another bad kid filling his water gun with pee and shooting me in the head. Was this an intro into waterboarding? I smelled bad in the summer heat and ran home to scrub myself almost blackless. These types of incidents took place in my childhood, but they were also my take home exams into the human mind. People do bad things. People do terrible things if they believe they can get away with it. Every heart has a revenge chamber that ticks like a time bomb. How many popular movies use revenge just to butter the popcorn? Why is Jack Bauer still popular these days? Haven't we run out of 24 hours or do we just like to torture people again and again? Oh, and what's a little waterboarding if the guy across the street is into beheading folks? Funny how we don't see anymore of those B-tapes these days. Have they gone the way of the cassette or 8-track? We seem to be in a new torture trend right now. The media loves to bark. Every Pelosi loves to bite a Republican. We are trapped in a rinse cycle and might be centuries away from the peaceful warmth of a dryer. I want to believe all our sins will one day be washed away. I want to believe in my fellow human being. But where are the kind acts of compassion these days? Why do we continue to pray- yet hate so much? I listened to Obama's Cairo speech yesterday and felt inspired. But shortly after, I read the criticism, the complaints and the bullshit. I thought about all the adults in the world who still love to play with firecrackers.

Tricycle's Daily Dharma

What kind of a world will you create?

Emotions color how we see the world around us, they affect how we are in any given moment and how we behave, and ultimately they serve as the motivating forces for how we humans transform the world around us. If we spend time dwelling on our desire, we gradually cocreate a world driven by greed, advertising, and compulsive consumerism. When we dwell in anger and fear, we cocreate a world filled with weapons, conflicts, and wars. To the extent that we dwell in love and compassion, we cocreate a world characterized by peace, mercy, safety and inspiring beauty. We need not believe in paradise to see how compassion makes our homes, our towns, and our world better places in which to live.

–Lorne Ladner, from The Lost Art of Compassion (HarperSanFrancisco)

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Tricycle's Daily Dharma

Be Kind

Nobody has done anything to us—we have done it to ourselves. We are heirs to our karma. We are also masters of our destiny, because with a bit of care we can eliminate harmful acts, which produce painful results, and practice positive or kind acts, which produce happiness. This is why the Buddha emphasized the importance of ethical and altruistic behavior: it leads to happiness. The most important thing in all the world is to be kind.

–Rob Nairn, from What is Meditation?: Buddhism for Everyone (Shambhala Publications)

Tricycle's Daily Dharma

Take Pride in Your Tears

People often talk about trying to hold back their tears, but as human beings, we should take pride in our capacity to be sad and happy. We mustn’t ignore the preciousness of our human birth or take it for granted. It is extremely precious and very powerful. We cannot ignore our basic human endowment.

–Chögyam Trungpa, from Ocean of Dharma (Shambhala Publications)

Quote of the Day:

The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God's vision. Now, that must be our work here on earth.

- President Obama

On another note:

Hey, didn't Hillary look cute in her hijab?

THE O REPORT:

Cairo:

Obama Calls For New Beginning With Muslim World : NPR
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104891406&ft=1&f=1001&sc=emaf

DEAR JOHN, DEAR FRANKLIN:

John Hope Franklin Memorial Service and webpage:

Service: June 11, 11-1 p.m. at Duke University Chapel, Durham, NC

Detail: http://www.duke.edu/johnhopefranklin/event.html

Oh, that Obama...

So I went online just to read comments about Obama's Cairo's speech. No disappointment.
Silly, crazy stuff about Muslims and Islam. Can I change a few passcodes? It's dangerous to think some of these people have the right to vote. It also explains everything from slavery to surgical masks. We fear our neighbors. We fear the unknown. We don't care to read and we don't care to study. God should invent another human race. This one is turning out to be a bad experiment. A serpent lives inside all of us. You can't blame ignorance on a bad apple.

Kung-Fu - Bound for Glory:

David Carradine dead at 72 in Bangkok.

No more music in the flute. What do we do now, master?

CUBA LIBRE?

Good to see progress being made between the U.S. and Cuba. Can we all hold hands at the O.A.S. soon? Fidel's beard is gray, shouldn't that tell us something?

JUST SAY N.O.
Katrina victims will not have to vacate their trailers. Residents of more than a thousand trailers can buy them for $5 or less. There are still 3,450 families in trailers. Many are the elderly, poor and disabled people. The Obama Administration has been struggling to clean-up things. Let's hope the area is not hit by another bad storm this year.

EDUCATION:
Harvard University has created the F.O. Matthiessen endow professorship in Gay Studies. It was made possible by a gift of $1.5 million from the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus. Harvard will invite eminent scholars studying issues related to sexuality or sexual minorities to teach on campus for one semester.

No more Wang Dang Doodle. Koko Taylor dead at 80.
Chicago Blues Singer.

Things to watch:

Upcoming election in Iran on June 12th.
Will the people in that nation support Mir Hussein Moussavi?
Obama's election last year elevated the type of leadership and vision we need to see emerge in other nations around the world. How can people support a leader who questions the Holocaust? It's 2009 and the world is round not flat.

How will Netanyahu respond to Obama's tough talk in Cairo? Do we move forward with dialogue or do we give Obama the Jimmy Carter treatment?

When will Palestinians get their act together? More unity is needed in the neighborhood before we can call it a homeland. Too many guns are in the hands of young people. When will this cycle be broken?

THE O REPORT

President Obama's speech in Cairo was excellent. It was by far the best speech of his career.
It's a blueprint for world change. Obama has become the teacher among world leaders. What a challenge outlined for future generations. Let's see how the spin masters spin this one. Be sure to listen to Obama's speech and not some one's interpretation. Keep Fox News in the hole.

THE 4TH ANNUAL MILLER SOFTBALL CLASSIC

The Bennington Writing Seminars residency starts on June 11th. On June 14th, the 4th Annual Miller Softball Classic will be held. This is an event I sponsor. Yes, it's poets against those hated fiction writers. Students and faculty members on the field. Winners (and losers) get to choose a book of poems from the bookstore.

My advice to the poets? Watch those fiction writers. They think words are steroids.

Ichiro Watch:
1 hit last night.
The streak extends to 27 games.

Quote of the Day:

"Lakers in six, I think."
- President Obama.

COMING ATTRACTIONS:

Tuesday, President Obama created the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission. 2011 will mark the 100th anniversary of Reagan's birth. A good time to look at his influence (or impact) on the African American community and people of color. A time to assess his KO policies on labor.

Look for Republicans to try and bring back the good old days. Reagan postage stamps? Coins? You betcha.

Blue Water Wisdom

I went down to the river, just to watch the water flow.
I went down to the river, just to watch her water flow.
An old woman, said buddy, I need to teach you how to row.

- E. Ethelbert Miller

At eighty you don't waste time planning ten years in the future. You learn, I suppose, to live in the moment - as you have been told to do all your life. You live in the moment rising from a chair. At some point, you will no longer be able to rise from a chair. So drink your coffee and plan your day, or at least your next half hour.

- Donald Hall, from his memoir UNPACKING THE BOXES

Ichiro Watch:
Extended his hitting streak to 26 consecutive games.
This is his seventh hitting streak of at least 20 games since his arrival from Japan in 2001.
He is tied with George Sisler for the fourth most 20-plus game hitting streaks.
Keeler, Cobb and Rose had eight.

Joe DiMaggio has the major league record hitting streak of 56 games, set in 1941.

"It's true when they say it's the hardest record to break."
- Ichiro Suzuki

From THE 5TH INNING by E. Ethelbert Miller:

The one baseball record I still find amazing is the one set by Joe DiMaggio. He hit safely in 56 consecutive games, from May 15-July 16, 1941. After his streak was stopped he started a ndw one and hit in 17 consecutive games. There is no way I will accomplish anything close to this in my life. I'll always be a Ken Keltner type of guy.

Intelligence:
I was reading Bob Herbert's "The Howls of A Fading Species" in The New York Times (today).
He writes about how Karl Rove mentioned that Ms. Sotomayor was "not necessarily" smart even though she graduated summa cum laude from Princeton. What Herbert forgot to mention is the college Rove graduated from. Did he? Fact check and find the zero. But let's move across the Op-ED page and smell the words of David Brooks. This guy is always talking about intelligence. Often it's simply elitist. Remember during the debates how McCain kept talking about how Obama didn't understand? This irks me. Read Brooks today, talking about G.M. At the end of his essay he takes another swipe at the Obama Administration:

The end result is that G.M. will not become more like successful car companies. It will become less like them. The federal merger will not accelerate the company's viability. It will impede it.
We've seen this before, albeit in different context: An overconfident government throws itself into a dysfunctional culture it doesn't really understand. The result is quagmire. The costs escalate. There is no exit strategy.

In fairness to Brooks, please read his entire column so that you can conclude the guy has no idea what he is talking about. Does Brooks really understand? Probably not. Do Republicans have any new ideas?

Provincetown # 1

Who left the bread on the beach?
The birds feed themselves.
Why is my hunger so jealous?

- E. Ethelbert Miller

Meanwhile, the poetry of my time was changing - and I resisted change even as my own poems began to change.

- Donald Hall

NEWS FROM NAWAZ:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shuja-nawaz/obama-needs-to-look-to-th_b_210105.html

WHERE IS THE CARAVAN GOING?

Washington, DC - April 11, 2008 The American Poetry Museum will host an exhibition opening for its newest exhibition "The Washington Caravan". The event will take place on June 20th, 2009 at 1pm at the American Poetry Museum's Anacostia Gallery (1922 Martin Luther King Jr Ave SE Washington, DC 20020). The exhibition will feature photography and poetry to documents over twenty diverse living poets whose work has both been influenced by the capitol city as much as Washington's literature has been impacted by their unique voices. The admission is free and the Gallery is open Tuesday-Thursday 11am-4pm and Friday-Sunday open by appointment.

Photographer Mignonette "Mig" Dooley and poet Abdul Ali are the curators of The Washington Caravan.This exhibit represents only a sample of Washington's literary artists. A portrait of each poets and their poem creates a fuller portrait of who they are and what might their concerns be living in the capitol city. This exhibit is an homage to the groundbreaking anthology The Negro Caravan edited by Howard University professors Sterling A. Brown and Arthur P. Davis.

Tricycle's Daily Dharma

Make Peace with Your Mind

For the spiritual power of peace to touch every person on this earth, it must radiate out from a profound peace within our own mind: across political and religious barriers, and across the barriers of ego and self-righteousness. To this end, we should seek an inner peace so pure and stable that we cannot be moved to anger by violence or to selfish attachment and fear by those who view or confront us with contempt and hatred. We can achieve such stability only by purifying the mind’s poisons—ignorance, anger, attachment, jealousy, and pride; then we can clearly see that war and suffering are but their outer reflections. The essential difference between true peacemakers and those who wage war of any sort is the presence of extraordinary patience and discipline in the minds of the peacemakers as they work with these pervasive poisons. If we truly understand this, we will never allow ourselves to be defeated from within or without.

–Lama Shenpen Drolma, from Change of Heart: The Bodhisattva Peace Training of Chagdud Tulku (Padma)

AFRICAN AMERICANS, ISLAM AND THE REST OF US

With the recent shooting at the Army Navy Career Center in Arkansas, look for more attention to be given to African Americans and Islam. Anybody going from Harlem to Yemen these days is going to be watched. I'm certain African Americans departing from prisons with prayer rugs are going to increase some one's data base too. Islam is a worldwide religion. The last time I looked gravity was operating inside the black community too. You will know how serious things are becoming when you find a group of African Americans calling for the end of jazz as well as pork. Who would ever want to ban A LOVE SUPREME? Talk to the Big Buddha in Afghanistan.

Black women walking behind their men again? What year is this? What year do you want it to be? I have no problems with prayers five times a day. I just worry about what people are praying for. One God or just one way of looking at the world? Where is the Jihad for love? How do we struggle to find the goodness in our hearts? Any faith that encourages someone to harm another -is the wrong faith for this world. Don't just change your name, change the world. Make it a better place. IMAGINE.

THE O REPORT
With Obama heading to Egypt to give his major talk to the Muslim world, it's interesting how the media is focusing more attention on Israel. Is Obama giving a talk on Israel? No. Is this a talk about the Middle East? That's not what was being discussed during the campaign. Maybe President Obama should have given his major speech on Islam in Indonesia. He could have played the old home town again and made it a homecoming. What was suppose to be a speech to Muslims and Islam is now being overshadowed by the issue of Palestine and Israel's security. Israel wants all the attention to be given to Iran right now. That's their major concern. I think the key thing to watch this month will be the upcoming elections in Iran. If moderates win some gains within Iran it could influence the direction the US continues to take. In regards to Israel, the issue of settlements and Israel's expansion has to be discussed. Palestinians should not become Native Americans. A two state solution has to be upheld. Jerusalem should become a global city and be a place of peace for people of the world. The Obama Administration is trying to push the US out of "stale" politics. We need to rethink the Middle East, as well as Cuba. Nothing worse that a bankrupt foreign policy. Why should the entire world be run like Michigan?

CHENEY:
It's interesting how the media has not given more attention to Dick Cheney's recent comments at the National Press Club on Gay marriage. With one of his daughters being Gay, it seems the former VP is more open to Gay Rights than other Republicans.

NBA
So who will I take in the NBA Finals? I love watching Kobe but this is going to be a big man game.
It will also be a game decided by the three pointer. Can the Lakers play excellent defense for 4 games? Questionable. If their centers play weak - look for Howard to have a monster series. The guy is hungry and seems like Shaq's replacement. Kobe and the gang should attack the basket and put the big man on the bench with some early fouls. Failure to do this could mean Orlando in 4 or 5 games. This team is playing that good. Who are you taking LeBron? No comment? Don't be an Isiah Thomas you'll lose those endorsements. Always talk to the media. Miller's Law.

Ichiro Watch:
1 hit last night
Streak at 25 games

WORDS FROM MICHAEL MOORE

It is with sad irony that the company which invented "planned obsolescence" -- the decision to build cars that would fall apart after a few years so that the customer would then have to buy a new one -- has now made itself obsolete. It refused to build automobiles that the public wanted, cars that got great gas mileage, were as safe as they could be, and were exceedingly comfortable to drive. Oh -- and that wouldn't start falling apart after two years. GM stubbornly fought environmental and safety regulations. Its executives arrogantly ignored the "inferior" Japanese and German cars, cars which would become the gold standard for automobile buyers. And it was hell-bent on punishing its unionized workforce, lopping off thousands of workers for no good reason other than to "improve" the short-term bottom line of the corporation. Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record profits, it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars? History will record this blunder in the same way it now writes about the French building the Maginot Line or how the Romans cluelessly poisoned their own water system with lethal lead in its pipes.

So here we are at the deathbed of General Motors. The company's body not yet cold, and I find myself filled with -- dare I say it -- joy. It is not the joy of revenge against a corporation that ruined my hometown and brought misery, divorce, alcoholism, homelessness, physical and mental debilitation, and drug addiction to the people I grew up with. Nor do I, obviously, claim any joy in knowing that 21,000 more GM workers will be told that they, too, are without a job.

But you and I and the rest of America now own a car company! I know, I know -- who on earth wants to run a car company? Who among us wants $50 billion of our tax dollars thrown down the rat hole of still trying to save GM? Let's be clear about this: The only way to save GM is to kill GM. Saving our precious industrial infrastructure, though, is another matter and must be a top priority. If we allow the shutting down and tearing down of our auto plants, we will sorely wish we still had them when we realize that those factories could have built the alternative energy systems we now desperately need. And when we realize that the best way to transport ourselves is on light rail and bullet trains and cleaner buses, how will we do this if we've allowed our industrial capacity and its skilled workforce to disappear?

Thus, as GM is "reorganized" by the federal government and the bankruptcy court, here is the plan I am asking President Obama to implement for the good of the workers, the GM communities, and the nation as a whole. Twenty years ago when I made "Roger & Me," I tried to warn people about what was ahead for General Motors. Had the power structure and the punditocracy listened, maybe much of this could have been avoided. Based on my track record, I request an honest and sincere consideration of the following suggestions:

1. Just as President Roosevelt did after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the President must tell the nation that we are at war and we must immediately convert our auto factories to factories that build mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices. Within months in Flint in 1942, GM halted all car production and immediately used the assembly lines to build planes, tanks and machine guns. The conversion took no time at all. Everyone pitched in. The fascists were defeated.

We are now in a different kind of war -- a war that we have conducted against the ecosystem and has been conducted by our very own corporate leaders. This current war has two fronts. One is headquartered in Detroit. The products built in the factories of GM, Ford and Chrysler are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps. The things we call "cars" may have been fun to drive, but they are like a million daggers into the heart of Mother Nature. To continue to build them would only lead to the ruin of our species and much of the planet.

The other front in this war is being waged by the oil companies against you and me. They are committed to fleecing us whenever they can, and they have been reckless stewards of the finite amount of oil that is located under the surface of the earth. They know they are sucking it bone dry. And like the lumber tycoons of the early 20th century who didn't give a damn about future generations as they tore down every forest they could get their hands on, these oil barons are not telling the public what they know to be true -- that there are only a few more decades of useable oil on this planet. And as the end days of oil approach us, get ready for some very desperate people willing to kill and be killed just to get their hands on a gallon can of gasoline.

President Obama, now that he has taken control of GM, needs to convert the factories to new and needed uses immediately.

2. Don't put another $30 billion into the coffers of GM to build cars. Instead, use that money to keep the current workforce -- and most of those who have been laid off -- employed so that they can build the new modes of 21st century transportation. Let them start the conversion work now.

3. Announce that we will have bullet trains criss-crossing this country in the next five years. Japan is celebrating the 45th anniversary of its first bullet train this year. Now they have dozens of them. Average speed: 165 mph. Average time a train is late: under 30 seconds. They have had these high speed trains for nearly five decades -- and we don't even have one! The fact that the technology already exists for us to go from New York to L.A. in 17 hours by train, and that we haven't used it, is criminal. Let's hire the unemployed to build the new high speed lines all over the country. Chicago to Detroit in less than two hours. Miami to DC in under 7 hours. Denver to Dallas in five and a half. This can be done and done now.

4. Initiate a program to put light rail mass transit lines in all our large and medium-sized cities. Build those trains in the GM factories. And hire local people everywhere to install and run this system.

5. For people in rural areas not served by the train lines, have the GM plants produce energy efficient clean buses.

6. For the time being, have some factories build hybrid or all-electric cars (and batteries). It will take a few years for people to get used to the new ways to transport ourselves, so if we're going to have automobiles, let's have kinder, gentler ones. We can be building these next month (do not believe anyone who tells you it will take years to retool the factories -- that simply isn't true).

7. Transform some of the empty GM factories to facilities that build windmills, solar panels and other means of alternate forms of energy. We need tens of millions of solar panels right now. And there is an eager and skilled workforce who can build them.

8. Provide tax incentives for those who travel by hybrid car or bus or train. Also, credits for those who convert their home to alternative energy.

9. To help pay for this, impose a two-dollar tax on every gallon of gasoline. This will get people to switch to more energy saving cars or to use the new rail lines and rail cars the former autoworkers have built for them.

Well, that's a start. Please, please, please don't save GM so that a smaller version of it will simply do nothing more than build Chevys or Cadillacs. This is not a long-term solution. Don't throw bad money into a company whose tailpipe is malfunctioning, causing a strange odor to fill the car.

During my tenure at Howard University, directing the African American Resource Center, I've had the opportunity to observe the reading habits of black people (not their souls). One book that we had to almost place under lock and key was the Black Classic - THEY CAME BEFORE COLUMBUS by Ivan Van Sertima. Students loved this book along with THE DESTRUCTION OF BLACK CIVILIZATIONS by Chancellor Williams. Many years before the rise of Street Lit, it was the Ivan Van Sertima books one asked the vendors for. The Muslims had the Quran and the Christians had their bibles. The Black Nationalists had their own holy books - and these texts needed believers too. I always had a Sun Ra album or two around me. Maybe this is why the early black presence in this hemisphere didn't attract me as much as the rings of Saturn. Space is the Place. I remember visiting Alice Walker in Brooklyn and giving her a copy of THEY CAME BEFORE COLUMBUS. I suspect some literary critic might wonder if it had an influence on her novel, THE TEMPLE OF MY FAMILIAR. Sometimes these E-Notes sound like they should be placed next to the X-Files.

OBIT: FROM BLACK STAR NEWS Ivan Van Sertima the Guyanese-born historian, who gained global renown with his scholarship showing African presence in the Americas before Columbus, has died. Van Sertima’s most famous work was “They Came Before Columbus,” (Random House, 1976) which showed African influences in Central and South America before the arrival of Europeans. Thereafter, he engaged in battle with conservative scholars who rejected his teachings. He was a professor at Rutgers University, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He died peacefully on May 25, memorial day. Dr. Ivan Van Sertima was born January 26, 1935, in Kitty Village, Guyana. He was one of the most brilliant scholars and historians to hail from there; he belonged on the same podium as the late Guyanese scholar and union organizer, Dr. Walter Rodney; and American giants such as Dr. John Henrik Clarke and Martin Bernal. Van Sertima was also a linguist and anthropologist. Van Sertima’s father, Frank Obermuller, was a trade union leader. Van Sertima initially focused on writing poetry after his primary and secondary education. He later attended the renowned School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London where in 1969, he graduated with honors. He was fluent in Kiswahili and Hungarian languages. Van Sertima became a U.K.-based journalist for many years, focusing on Africa and the Caribbean. He found time to compile a dictionary of Kiswahili legal terms while doing field work in Africa. Van Sertima moved to the United States in 1970. He later completed his master’s degree at Rutgers in 1977. He became Associate Professor of African Studies in the Department of Africana Studies. As with the legendary Cheik Anta Diop, the seminal Senegalese scholar, Van Sertima also showed that Ancient Egyptians were Black. He gained global fame with his 1976 book “They Came Before Columbus,” which eventually became a bestseller. He showed prehistoric African influences in Central and South America. At a 1998 conference in South Africa on the theme of the African Renaissance, Van Sertima presented an article, The Lost Sciences of Africa: An Overview. He showed early African advances in engineering, agriculture, navigation, medicine, writing, metallurgy, astronomy, mathematics, and architecture. He showed that higher learning was the preserve of elites rendering them vulnerable to destruction. He had intellectual battles with conservative scholars who criticized and challenged his Afro-pre-Columbus teachings. Van Sertima even appeared before a United States Congressional committee to challenge crediting Christopher Columbus with the “discovery” of America. His critics contend that by asserting African origins for prehistoric Olmec culture in present-day Mexico, Van Sertima ignored the work of Central American scholars. Moreover, his critics claimed no evidence emerged of prehistoric African influence in controlled archeological excavations and they contended that while Olmec stone heads superficially appear to be African they were not similar to Nubian populations Van Sertima claimed as originators. Notwithstanding a hostile review in The New York Times in 1977 by the U.K. scholar Glyn Daniel who claimed the work was “rubbish” and that booksellers wondered if it should have been placed “in folklore and mythology.” Van Sertima countered that many scholars were narrow-minded because in mainstream of academia certain ideas had “become the given, taken for granted in society." The late Dr. John Henrik Clarke was more explicit and said Whites scholars wanted to control global knowledge and images. "They have to admit that the foundations of what you call Western civilization was laid by non-Europeans,” the late Dr. Clarke once told a New York Times reporter. “When they say whites brought forth world civilization they are a bunch of fakers and liars.” Herb Boyd, the noted historian and journalist, who attended Van Sertima's funeral services today at the Riverside Church in Harlem recalled Van Sertima as an "innovative and creative scholar" who always gave credit to historians and scientists who came before him. "His chief contribution to history and his main legacy to me is his hypothesis that Africans were in the New World before Europeans," Boyd said, adding that "What he did in his work was almost give irrefutable evidence...." Moreover, Boyd said, "He brought the whole Diaspora home for us." Please post your comments directly online or submit them to Milton@blackstarnews.com for posting. “Speaking Truth To Empower.”

NEWS FROM EL SALVADOR:


Today Mauricio Funes took the oath of the President of El Salvador in the first transfer of power between political parties since the end of the civil war in 1992.

MOVING BILLBOARDS:

The WNBA is going to permit the company LifeLock to place its corporate logo on the Phoenix Mercury jerseys. If this can "fly" in the woman's league look for it to begin in the NBA within 1-2 years. The excuse will be the Great Recession. Don't believe it. This is something corporations wanted to do for a long time. Can you imagine the Denver Nuggets with another tattoo?

Reading Donald Hall's UNPACKING THE BOXES. These words can be found on page 34:

Every afternoon, I shut the door of my bedroom to write: Poetry was secret, dangerous, wicked, and delicious.

FATHER'S DAY IS THIS MONTH. HERE IS A SHORT ESSAY I WROTE A FEW WEEKS AGO:

Long before men used oils and special after shave lotions, my father had his own unique scent. Enter my childhood home in the South Bronx in the 1950s and you immediately smelled the delicious cooking creations of my mother. But step further into the home and the masculine fragrance of my father would emerge.

My father, Egberto Miller, died in 1987. However, he left me the smell of Murray's grease which he used on his hair. He left behind the odor of cigars and pipes. I can see him sitting in a chair blowing smoke rings around my laughter. There are times when I long for the smell of my father.

A few weeks ago my family returned from New York with the remains of my father's record collection.They had been in my sister's possession and now were being handed over to me. Along with the records was a large framed picture of my father. It was taken while he was a young man, very handsome and dapper. Was he a musician? I let my hands wander through the record albums:Duke Ellington. Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie - nothing but jazz.I took one of the records out of its sleeve and placed it on the old record player I still own. Soon I was embraced by tunes like "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" and "Willow Weep For Me."

Although I could no longer inhale the scent of my father, I still had his "sound" surrounding me.The music never ends. It lingers, as we try to remind a younger generation how to dance.

As I listen to the jazz, I stare at my father's photograph. I imagine him in the 1940s getting ready to talk to my mother. He is waiting to ask her for a dance at the Savoy in Harlem. This is where they met. My mother closes her eyes. She inhales my father's beauty.It joins her own. This is how I imagined it before I was born.

- E. Ethelbert Miller