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Volume 9 Issue 19…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…May 12, 2006
Bit of History
Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910)
The daughter of well-to-do banker
Samuel Ward and Julia Rush Cutler, Julia Ward was born in New York City on May
27, 1819. Her paternal and maternal grandparents figured prominently in
colonial US history. At age sixteen, Ward began contributing poems to New York
periodicals.
In 1843, she married abolitionist, educator and physician Dr. Samuel Howe, who
founded the Perkins Institute for the Blind. Active members of the Free Soil
Party, the couple edited the anti-slavery journal Commonwealth
(1851-53). She published several volumes of poetry, including Passion
Flowers (1854) and Words for the Hour (1857), plays, travel books
and many articles.
US abolitionist, social activist and poet, Ward is probably best known as
author of Battle Hymn of the Republic, which she set to William Steffe's
pre-existing score. Originally published in the Atlantic Monthly
(1862), it became one of the most popular songs for the Union during the
American Civil War.
After the war, Howe focused on peace and women's issues, playing prominent
roles in several organizations. In 1868, she founded the New England Women's
Suffrage Association and the Association for the Advancement of Women (1869).
With Lucy Stone, she formed the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA).
Between 1870 and 1890, the women edited the organization's magazine, the Woman's
Journal. Howe served as president of the New England Women's Club (1872)
and delegate to the Prison Reform Congress in London (1872).
As an expression of her opposition to war, Howe founded the Woman's Peace
Association. In 1870, she proclaimed Mother's Day with a proclamation that
urged women to: Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have
hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of fears! Say firmly: "We
will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, "Our
husbands shall not come to us reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
"Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able
to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience. "We women of one country
will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained
to injure theirs."
Howe edited Sex and Education (1874), an answer to Sex in
Education (1873) by Edward Hammond Clarke (1820-1877). She wrote several
books of travel and Modern Society (1880) and Is Polite Society
Polite? (1895), collections of addresses that took their titles from
lectures given by Howe criticizing the shallowness and falseness of society,
the power of money, etc. Howe also wrote A Memoir of Dr. Samuel G. Howe
(1876) and Life of Margaret Fuller (1883), Sketches of
Representative Women of New England (1905) and her own Reminiscences
(1899).
On January 28, 1908 Julia Ward Howe became the first woman elected to the
American Academy of Arts and Letters. The mother of six children, Julia Ward
Howe died of unspecified causes on October 17, 1910. (Sources: www.prism.net/, http://womenshistory.about.com, www.nndb.com and www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk)
At best imperfect, the Dark Knight-Batman/White Ninja/Zorro is like all humans;
he is a work in progress. His young mind readily absorbs whatever is offered in
his environment by way of personal experiences and vicariously. Given the young
are so impressionable, it becomes extremely difficult to teach them the value
of honesty when parents and leaders lie and get what they want without obvious
repercussions. To explain why he quickly reached for a foolish prevarication,
rather than tell the truth, the Dark One/Ninja/Zorro sadly said, "Grandma,
it just came up."
The Baddest Black Woman I Know (My Mama)
By Yohannes Sharriff
Ada told Dorothy May, “Get your education girl.
Learn something new everyday.”
And mama paid close attention
Brilliant as the first ray of sun
After 40 days of rain
Ada said, “Don’t you dare wait
on some man in the pulpit.
You better find God yourself.”
Embodying the I Am,
Ada taught her daughter that God dwells within.
Mama listened close
and saw the Most High when Ada ran
into the burning house to save the baby.
Saving the future almost cost a leg
yet mounting hospital bills
and Thanksgiving without the meal
couldn’t stop the incredible Christmas
when Ada came home from the hospital.
Poor and overjoyed
Could afford nothing under the tree except family
Actually richer than Oprah Winfrey
Naturally magnetic personality
that’s how she got my pops along with her legs,
according to him, she arrived at his door
three days after they met
cause he needed to explain
why he had’t called her yet.
Formidable as Shirley Chisholm
against the bleak backdrop of Jim Crow
Picked too much cotton
So she never passed the paper sack test
but with one hand tied behind her back
mama extemporaneously run
laps around erroneous assumption
my mama so special
The first in her family
to conjure up a master’s degree
Fire red Afro puff, my mama still a firecracker
A year after she found out her grandson
was labeled learning disabled
she raised him to the honor roll
golden crown for her soul
HGTV inventive and more informative than CNN
Internet savvy, conspiracy theorist
blog junky with a weakness for chocolate
Thick as the buttermilk biscuits Ada taught her to make
A honey bun bandit
So don’t play crazy
Dorothy May bid wiz beat the brakes off the best
at spades, pluck and gin
champion with a bowling ball,
a tennis racket or a pen
matriarch of my heaven on earth
she’s a southern belle at home in the dirt
planting flowers with my father
I watch God and Goddess
Order their universe
my mama power and patient as the ocean
I wrote this while opening an old photo album
Of us on McLemore in Memphis
hot pants and thigh high boots
or a sun dress and no shoes
Mama made intricate art from ‘fro
Africa written all over us
Well rounded as her beautiful belly bearing me
my proud father taking pictures
I was conceived while my parents
prepared to sue the state of Tennessee
which could explain a lot about me
5 feet 4 inches she stands
The color of caramel stretching into golden sand
Her name, Dorothy May,
the baddest black woman I know
My mama!
Disgruntled feels: Consolidation! Some scandal is being bandied about to explain why Porter Goss is out as CIA director. The truth is probably something less esoteric. Old-fashioned greed and the need to speed along the neo-con agenda make more sense than the fluff about hookers and crooked contracts, given the no-bid billions wasted in Iraq. According to Antonia Juhasz, author of The Bush Agenda, "When George W. Bush speaks of spreading freedom to every corner of the earth, he means freedom for the great multinationals to extract everything they can from the world's resources and labor without the hindrance of public interest laws, environmental regulations or worker protections." To achieve his "free world vision," Bush is willing to use the US military. With so little time left in his final term of office, Bush is consolidating intelligence, which is used to justify warfare, under the military. It will expedite the start of the next installment of the war for corporate profits euphemistically called the war on terror.
Disgruntled wants to know: In the lead up to
the war in Iraq, a laundry list of Saddam Hussein sins was cited to justify an
unprovoked attack. The US accused Hussein of diverting money from the UN oil
for food program to build lavish palaces while his people starved amid
crumbling infrastructure. We are told good news out of Iraq is not reported.
However, a daily diet of death and destruction, few amenities, including
electricity and running water, and high unemployment make conditions worse for
many Iraqis than before the dictator's ouster; a majority of Iraqis want the
US-led occupation to end. After all, what is the difference between resources
wasted on Saddam's palaces and those being spent to build a US mega-embassy and
military bases?
Disgruntled says:
Like most Western holidays, including Christmas, Mothers' Day has become
commercially superficial. When one thinks about it, thanking our mothers for
all the many things they do should be a daily ritual. As we celebrate her day
this year, we should reflect on the reason for the original Mothers' Day
proclamation. A pacifist and poet, Julia Howe called on women, who understood
the value of a life, the sacrifice it took to bring it into this world and
nurture it, to work for peace so no mother in any land suffers the loss of a
son to senseless war. Peace is the perfect Mothers' Day gift.
By John Burl Smith
When an apple fell into Sir Isaac Newton's lap and he gleamed the concept of gravity,
America did not exist. Newton's falling apple came to symbolize the foundation
of physics. Certainly, no one could conceive of the apple eventually coming to
symbolize motherhood, freedom and democracy in the United States of America.
Motherhood is all about choices, especially providing for everyone in the
family and maintaining equality and access. The gravity of the situation in
regards to the apple refers to the inventive way it made its way into pies and
how choice made a good product better. Apples, even when "half
baked," are mushy, so getting equal amounts of fruit is difficult.
Pioneering mothers figured out that pears would remain firm and juicy as an
apple pie filling and everyone would get ample fruit. Hence, we have the phrase
"American as apple pie," when it is really pears.
For some, this analogy may be a stretch, however the intent becomes clear when compared to another American invention, the Internet. The mother of high-speed communication, the Internet provides a whole host of choices for e-commerce and various expressions. Symbolic of apple pie, inventive entrepreneurs found creative ways to vary their mixture, change ingredients and satisfy consumers around the world. Choice also opened up a whole new platform for political speech and that is when Congress rewrote the law to change gravity online.
The Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006, like taxing the Internet, if passed, will change the Internet as we know it. Unlike mother and her democratic apple pie, companies like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner and other telephone and cable companies, not only want to control the ingredients, they want to change the way the pie is sliced.
This is not just a matter of
stopping the substitution of apples with pears; it is about limiting the amount
of fruit, as well as reducing the size of the slice one gets. Their slice of
the high-speed broadband networks the public uses to go online to read news,
shop, listen to music, post videos or any of the thousands of other uses is a
whopping 98%. This bill will create premium lanes on the Internet that will
allow companies to charge higher fees and give preferential access to their own
services and those who can afford extra charges.
The Bush administration, which has been trying to replace "mother"
with "Big Brother," wants to limit free speech. Without websites like
truthout.org , myspace.com
, thedish.org and many others, political
opposition, whistle blower, protest announcements and other information would
not reach the public. For such groups and individuals, the Internet is our
piece of the American pie, and if we want to keep getting a slice, we are going
to have to fight for it. Choice, free speech and access are like mother's apple
pie to democracy in America. And without it, all we have is mush.
Currently, www.savetheinternet.com
is conducting a petition drive to support Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and
Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Representatives Ed Markey, Rick Boucher, Anna Eshoo and
Jay Inslee in the House. They support "net neutrality," which
requires all websites to be treated equally. This means a single blogger or a
small political group can inexpensively create a Web page that is just as
accessible to the world as Microsoft's home page. Go online and sign the
petition. Together, we can prevent telecom giants from turning the Internet,
our slice of mother's American pie, into applesauce.
Pump Pimping
The US oil industry is an oligopoly, which is a market dominated by a few large
companies. An oligopoly operates more like a monopoly than perfect competition where
there are numerous small firms that satisfy the demand of numerous small
buyers.
Gas consumers are told the price at the pump is the result of supply and
demand. Under perfect competition theory, "as though guided by an
invisible hand," the forces of supply and demand establish an equilibrium
or market-clearing price. Actually, there is no perfect competition. Moreover,
consumers are beginning to realize the heavy hands of price gouging and
collusion determine price in the oil market.
There is evidence that consumers are being gouged or over-charged at the pump.
It includes a Chevron memo that show oil executives colluded to reduce refining
capacity to boost oil profits, which artificially limited supply in order to
raise prices. There are also synchronized price movements.
The oil industry is a big campaign contributor. Few of the nation's political
leaders are willing to accuse the industry of price gouging. They are even more
reluctant to do anything about it. So, the pump pimping will continue unabated.
Sabers Rattling
Remember when the Bush administration claimed it would exhaust diplomacy in
forcing Saddam Hussein to come clean on his weapons of mass destruction? Saddam
destroyed missiles days before the start of shock and awe. The sabers rattled
and propaganda spewed until Baghdad was bombed back into the Stone Age, the US
controlled Iraq's oil fields and resumed selling Iraqi oil for US dollars.
Now, the US public is daily fed Iranian sins with diplomatic lip service. But,
the stage is set for war. Like Iraq, Iran threatens to sell oil in euros,
George W. Bush used a recess appointment to install a warmonger in the top
diplomatic post at the UN - Ambassador John Bolton, and now intelligence
gathering and analysis are military functions.
As the saber rattling grows shrill, will Americans be duped again into
sacrificing their sons and daughters on the altar of oil profits?
Mailbox:
E-Mails, Faxes and Telephone Calls
Email lifeforce@rockymountains.net On The Move To Destroy America...By Greg Szymanski...4-28-6 ...A slow, meticulous and patient takeover of the United States is now under way by a group of Trotskyites embedded in the government using terrorism as a means of "fear and control," according to a retired Air Force General. And the only way to defeat them, said Gen. Ben Parton, is to immediately take back the political process from the treasonous hijackers before it's too late and America is turned into a fascist state.
Email www.truthout.org ...George W. Bush has claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office. Claiming the power to set aside any law passed by Congress if it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution, the laws Bush said he can ignore include military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research. Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush's assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress, upsetting the balance between the branches of government. The Constitution is clear in assigning to Congress the power to write the laws and to the president a duty ''to take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Bush, however, has repeatedly declared that he does not need to execute laws he believes is unconstitutional.
Email richaro3@aol.com...Prosecutors have e-mails showing Rep. Tom DeLay's office knew lobbyist Jack Abramoff arranged the financing for the GOP leader's controversial European golfing trip in 2000 and was concerned "if someone starts asking questions." E-mails obtained by The Associated Press show DeLay's staff asked ABRAMOFF -- NOT the advocacy group -- to account for the costs that had to be legally disclosed on congressional travel forms. DeLay's office was worried the group being cited as paying the costs might not even know about them.
www.truthout.org Nobel Peace Prize-winner and Iranian human rights advocate and dissident Shirin Ebadi was asked on PBS last week about the $75 million the US State Department intends to spend supporting pro-democracy groups in her country, to which she answered, "Can democracy be brought to people by bombs? Democracy is a culture. It has to come from within a society, not brought by America to a society."
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