Oloudah Equiano - ex-slave whose autobiography detailed horrors of the "Trade"

First of all, the term "Slave Trade" is not appropriate. Very little "exchange" was involved, on anyone's part. The very core of this criminal enterprise was theft and usurpation.

Secondly, we note that the existence of a "2d class" of humanity was and is impossible to justify, on any cognizable "ground" other than criminality -- to take what can be taken from those unable to prevent the taking.

I was amazed to see the name Oloudah Equiano resurrected in the film, AMAZING GRACE (written by Stephen Knight, directed by Michael Apted 2006). Equiano was one of the "disappeared" -- an accurate and brave historian of the facts, who wrote an autobiography detailing the horrors of the Middle Passage across the Atlantic. And then , as was done to Frederick Douglas, and countless others, those who stole the lives of those who were enslaved, very successfully deleted the evidence. Almost. Almost.

Is there a single Great Movie about our Founders?

There is no question that the Founders of the United States in the late 1700's were a brave and interesting bunch. Americans seem to recognize this fact, and its significance TO THE WORLD, by buying a huge number of books about the Founders. Does it seem odd, at all, that NOT ONE good movie has been made devoted to the achievements and sacrifices of a single one of the Founders? Methinks it would be huge, if only The Business would take the trouble to make it.

Confessions of a Bottom Feeder

Truth to tell, my reputation is bad. For one thing, this sort of "goes with the territory" for attorneys. We are drawn into conflicts where mud is currency. Even the finest characters find themselves covered with splatter, especially those with courage who are not filled with fear for their precious "reputation" as the fur begins to fly. An "attorney" who has never been savaged, never accused of ANYTHING, has probably done very little, or has never represented anyone in any kind of trouble.

Secondly, I have actually TRIED to get into trouble. I was looking for it. Interestingly, I thought lawyers had a sort of public duty to ferret out the wrong-doers. Not content with helping "victims", someone has to actually PURSUE the wrongdoer, make them accountable. Well...that is not going to go down quietly. Wrongdoers do not hesitate, in fact they are the first, to scream accusations. Oh, how "injured" they pretend to be, how the foulers cry "foul", when caught.

Finally, I STARTED my career by offending, entirely inadvertently, Justice Gardiner's highly-developed sense of self-importance. As the incorporator of the first professional "paralegal" organization in Orange County, my name was brought to his attention, and he has punished me ever since. Even now, decades after "paralegals" have become widely-accepted members of the team across every field of law practice, my name was already "associated" with an ancient impropriety -- something unauthorized THEN, albeit acceptable now.

Others are now able to benefit from the development of a more complex, layered, multi-professional practice using "paralegals". But once Justice Gardiner condemned our efforts, my career became a political football, as other judges seeking Gardiner's approval, caught the short-sighted and baseless hysteria.

As President Wilson said, if you want to make powerful enemies, just try making things better.

Hence, to shorten the long story, the reduction of my practice. From work in the office of the counsel to the President of the United States (Kalmbach's librarian when he counseled Nixon in Newport Beach), I am now picking up the cases which are resting on the bottom. And it is a surprisingly rich flow. There is more here, in the darkness, than ever meets the eye....

Theme: To screed or not to screed; why, why not?

TO NOT WRITE:

1. Great Ones do not write
For example, Jesus, Buddha, Socrates.
The more recent religious leaders who
appear to have written certain texts,
actually have an accepted tradition
to the contrary: Mohammad, Smith.

In Mohammad's case, the Quran was
dictated by him to women who could write.
He said he received the revelations
directly from the angel Gabriel.

In the case of Joseph Smith, the
Book of Mormon (1830) was a compilation of
of many ancient prophets, abridged by a
prophet historian named Mormon,
supplemented by his son Moroni (421 AD),
and revealed to Smith through translation
by two stones (the Urim and Thummim).

2. Look at the numbers. Scholars were already
at their limit in Gutenberg's day. Now, with
miles of books/writings pouring in DAILY...it
is obvious there is no great need for more.
Few can apply knowledge; few have ever
been much improved by reading of morals.
The engine of improvement has been compilations
of Science and How To Books. And it's a
bit late in the day to mark your contribution
to this deluge.

3.

TO WRITE:

1. The small and unaccomplished do not write.
As for the Great Ones who supposedly did not
write, SOMEBODY next to the Great Ones,
DID write. And it is implausible, however
it is preached, that "oral" teachings were
somehow memorized, transcribed, or taken down.
The quality of The Written is remarkable and
invariably worthwhile to someone in some function.

2. It is RELATIVELY SAFE to read and write.
As Chesterton put it:
["The Man Who Was Thursday" (7)].

..."Between us, by the peace of God,
Such truth can now be told:
Yes, there is strength in striking root,
And good in growing old.
We have found common things at last,
And marriage and a creed,
And I may safely write it now,
And you may safely read."

3. It is wildly therapeutic; nonpareiled.

4. Writing, with the benefits of speech, but
inside the alpha recording of a Time-Machine which
allows us to Go Back, reflect; in this sense,
it may even be "progressive", enabling one
to reflect on error and improve.

5. It is certainly collegial. You get a "jury"
of comments, many of which are breath-taking
in their insight.

Hope as a Strategy (when ALL is hopeless)

ceteris paribus - all other things being equal - Pandora's Vox

THE STRATEGIC VALUE OF HOPE

Two aspects of "hope"--confidence in one's ability and the
determination to succeed--are powerful predictors of performance in
teams, but determination may play a more important role in success,
according to University of Arkansas education researcher Kathleen
Collins.

Determination is what motivates individuals to use their abilities and
may be a better predictor of success in team settings than individual
levels of confidence, Collins suggests.

In studies of graduate students working in teams, Collins and her
colleagues found that groups with higher determination scores produced
higher quality work. Groups in which individuals were more varied in
their motivation scores had poorer group performances.

"Hope is not just wishful thinking," says Collins. "When we break hope
into its components and look at the senses of motivation and ability to
reach goals, we can predict how well a group will perform." She
concludes that "hope, academic procrastination, and anxiety are
inextricably intertwined in determining achievement among cooperative
learning groups" and recommends future research focusing on "the role
that these and other personality variables play in the cooperative
learning group process."

SOURCE: University of Arkansas,
http://dailyheadlines.uark.edu/10544.htm

We believe things are Better/ Worse than they are

Our ability to see the world and eachother as it is and we are is much impeded by a kind of "accelerator" within our thinking. We hear what we expect, and we expect bad news and hope for recognition for our efforts. This expectation distorts every noise coming in, and that is just the beginning. Our brain processes exigent information first. Crisis comes in with the most "interest" taken. We run with it before we know what "it" is.

The world is not so bad; of course it is worse. People are good; of course, they are divine.

Library of Congress - the Monster in the Information Room

It was burned twice -- once by the British in 1812, and once by mistake in 1952. The Library of Congress has grown into the largest library in the world, with more than 130 million items on approximately 530 miles of bookshelves. The collections include more than 29 million books and other printed materials, 2.7 million recordings, 12 million photographs, 4.8 million maps, and 58 million manuscripts. This should give anyone who thinks they should write something...at least pauze.

Martin Luther King Jr - the genuine leader

HATE BEGETS HATE

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violaeence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction...The chain reaction of evil--hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars--must be broken."

POWER / JUSTICE

"Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love."

From WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE: CHAOS OR COMMUNITY?" 1967 address.

Perspectives: GAMBLING

Facts concerning Gambling:

Research shows that if you "play" the games offered in Las Vegas which have the most and best "chance" for winning, and if on those games, you "play" a perfect transaction in which at each "choice-point" you select the alternative which is best for you, over time, you will still lose.

There is only one FORM of gambling in which you have a chance of benefiting: If you open up a gambling casino yourself, and lure the suckers in to just hand over money to you.

In 2007, the major hotel-casinos of Las Vegas posted their highest profit ever -- $2.1 billion, on $5.4 billion gross up from $4.5 billion in 2005, reported by the Gaming Control Board, compiled from 271 resorts.

Perspective: The Korean Peninsula

Fact/ Trends concerning Korea:

1. The world's largest Shipyard is run by Hyundai Heavy Industries in Ulsan, South Korea. New ships, some as large as 15 stories high and 3 football fields in length, can be launched every five days. 44% of the world's largest commercial vessels are built in South Korea.

2. South Korea used to be the "farming" region, compared with the "industrial" North. Now, the South has eclipsed the North in all activities except Fawning Over Great Leader exercises.

3. Immediately after the Korean War (40+ years ago), living standards in South Korea were relatively low, with worker's earning $70/year. South Korea is now the tenth larges economy in the world, with worker's earning $16,000/year.

4. Numerous reports of slave-labor, child-labor, concentration camps, and deliberate starvation of the population have been corroborated by eye-witnesses, aerial photography, and film, concerning North Korea. There are almost no "bird calls" heard in North Korea -- a starving people have eaten all the vermin, insects, and birds.

Still think George Bush "won" the Presidential Elections?

It is now a documented fact that 100% of the Exit Polls, done by professional pollsters across the political spectrum and including the most extreme of the neo-conservative vote-mongerers, in 2000, and in 2004, came up with "results" which showed that a candidate other than Bush had won the Presidency. (In 2000, it was Gore, in 2004, it was Kerry).
The National Election Pool, which is a consortium of the five broadcase and cable networks with the Associated Press that commissions exist polls, has clearly published the data showing this fact. However, in a remarkable or at least curious inability to draw rational conclusions from this data, the NEP decided that all of the Exit Polling was somehow flawed. So they have studied the "problem" of flawed polling -- claiming that the exit pollsters had trouble getting older people to answer the surveys, or that Democrats are intrinsically more willing to participate in surveys.
In the history of Exit Polling, there are only TWO ELECTIONS which have not been accurately predicted. There are only TWO ELECTIONS in which the results as "counted" were not accurately projected from the data gathered by professional Exit Polling. Exit Polling in US Presidential Elections has not been a haphazard lark performed by amateurs since Jackson.
Why, in the face of a legion of voters who have testified that the voting machines did not respond appropriately, and with technicians logging up failed tests for the voting machines manufactured by Bush patrons, do they presume that the pollsters failed to obtain correct information? The fact that 100% of the Exit Polls had projected a NON-Bush victory, does not point to "a flaw" in the independent pollster methodology. The discrepant results clearly point to the possibility that the machines which created the "winner", are themselves flawed!
This logical conclusion is of course corroborated by the fact that the ACTUAL COUNT of the uncounted ballots in Florida in 2000 (not yet counted by the time that the Republican Registrar of Voters, declared "victory" for George Bush, but thereafter counted under the auspices of the Associated Press with bi-partizan representatives in full control) shows that Gore won the 2000 Presidential Election.

Former NYSE Chairman Richard Grasso, and Greed

The LA Times reported a pleasant congruence of newsworthy events, in its 10/20/2006 Business Section: The Dow Jones closing above 12,000 for the first time, and the release of State Supreme Court Justice Charles Ramos' ruling that the former New York Stock Exchange Chairman, Richard Grasso, might be forced to return $100 million to the Exchange.
Justice Ramos made a point of basing the restitution order on the fact that Grasso was serving as Chairman, an office with "fiduciary" standards owed to the organization he purported to serve while milking it with a stratospheric "compensation package" in excess of $187.5 million per annum. The Court rejected Grasso's argument that the NYSE board made up of top Wall Street executives was "informed" and approved his pay. Interestingly, Grasso contended that he himself did not know how much he was making, a fact that Justice Ramos labelled shocking: "That a fiduciary of any institution, profit or not-for-profit, could honestly admit that he was unaware of a liability ofo over $100 million...is a clear violation [of fiduciary duties]."
In the May 2004 law suit brought by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, Grasso was proved to have stocked the Board with cronies and then misled them about the magnitude of his ballooning pay, including more than $100 million in retirement benefits quietly accrued in his last few years on the "job".
Greed is not necessarily good or bad, and it is not a quality which is going to disappear, not matter how much it is condemned. However, where it is compounded with fraud -- concealments, misdirection, misrepresentation, and violation of fiduciary duties -- the act of benefitting oneself at the expense of others who are in no position to object or even realize what is happening, is simply a form of theft. It is a crime, a wrong, a violation of laws, and a distortion of the "free" market. For a "business" person to indulge in thievery, instead of exchange, is to destroy the market. His act is tantamount to market murder, in that it puts fear into the marketplace, and obstructs the transactions that otherwise would occur, killing them.
Equally shocking, however, is how LITTLE the "sanction" really is, relative to the scale of the offense. As sharply critical as Justice Ramos is of Grasso's testimony, he is still limiting the sanction to restitution. His ruling seems limited to a species of disgorgement. In other words, Grasso (and future Grasso's hiding in other grass) had NO RISK: Either he gets away with stealing, or he is caught and has to give up what he stole. Mere disgorgement is not a disincentive.

Tempting Faith - believers are being USED by religious hypocrites; corroboration.

LAT 10132006 A19, Wallsten. "President Bush's top political advisors [Rowe] privately ridiculed evangelical supporters as 'nuts' and 'goofy' while embracing them in public and using their votes to help win elections."
The reviewer, Wallsten, interviewed Paul M. Weyrich, a Bush-conservative, about Kuo's book. The Bush administration denies Kuo's account of the "faith-based" program. Speech-writer Michael Gerson claims it is "laughable", and Jim Towey, another former director of the faith-based program, claims Kuo's description is unrecognizable. However, neither critic denied that politics factored predominantly into the program which has significantly failed to supplant community needs although it hosted numerous "conferences" appealing to pastors prior to elections.
Kuo is a second insider to document the political use of religious conviction by people who are themselves not righteous ones. Kuo's observations now corroborate those of John J. DiIulio Jr, the first director of the "Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives", a uniquely Rowe-based bureaucracy formed when Bush first took office. DiIulio was the first official to resign 7 months after his appointment in the Bush-Rowe-Cheney administration, stating that the White House was run by "Mayberry Machiavellians" who put political ends over everything else.
With this published corroboration by Kuo, who made the same accusation when he resigned from the same program in 2003, it appears that the leadership of our country has been "hijacked" (to use Kuo's term) by a cabal of religious hypocrites. The Christians are being fed to the lions, at their own expense inside the arena, while the lions outside the arena are gathering with impunity. In making this analogy, no disrespect to lions is intended.

The President Impeaches Himself

Columnist Al Martinez, LATimes 9/28/2006, referring to a story by Paul Richter concerning the growing alliances of people who now hate Americans:
"Richter's piece was the first time I had seen a story that laid out so clearly the predicament our cowboy leader has gotten us into. We can demand impeachment for a president's embarassing sexual dalliances but not for a president who has dragged a once respected nation into the slime. No one died when Bill Clinton reached out for Monica Lewinsky. Many have since George W. Bush reached out for Iraq."

PRJ: Insitutionalized Fraud

Washington-based SoundExchange released a list of 9000 recording artists which it claimed it was unable to locate in order to distribute $500,000 worth of "royalties". SoundExchange was creating by the recording industry to collect and distribute royalties. They could not find Rapper Mos Def, producer T-Bone Burnett, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
The artists forfeit the money to SoundExchange if not claimed.

Filmed! "King Leopold's Ghost", based on the Adam Hochschild book.

In less than 10 years since 1998, an estimated 3.9 million Congolese have died in armed conflicts. This is but the latest link in the bloody chain going back to Belgium and that peculiar "king" so carefuly described by Adam Hochschild.

Leopold killed an estimated 10 million. In the 150 years since, has anyone been able to recover? Viciousness creates such a closed circle.

Congo is now gearing up for a final round of elections -- the first in 40 years. Will the people flourish? In one of the most beautiful and naturally endowed regions of our planet?

Moazzam Begg, a prisoner in Guantanamo Bay

The LATimes 9/29/2006 printed an article by MB who was apparently taken prisoner in January 2002 by abduction from his home in Islamabad, Pakistan. He had fled Kabul, Afghanistan where he had "helped" establish a girl's school and dig water wells. Held captive for 3 years.
The use of "Guantanamo" by this Administration to avoid the Constitution fools no one. And what is the point? How can we claim to be fighting FOR the Constitution when in fact we are ignoring it?

Stateswoman Ayaan Hirsi Ali

My hat, all my hair, everything...is off to people who speak truth to fanaticism. Anybody can bad-mouth the President. But to take on the Mafioso, or the Pharisees, or to speak out against the subjugation of women, the cruelty of religious "law", and the intolerant "religions", takes even more courage, of a purer form.
The nomination of Ayaan Ali by Victor Davis Hanson for a Nobel Peace Prize is not only appropriate, but it elevates Hanson as well. He is a senior fellow and professor of military history, at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

Asbestos, the "miracle mineral"

Silvery malleable but crisp, incredibly "useful". You could add it to almost any other material to make them stronger and more heat resistant. Long term exposure to asbestos is known to cause some terrible diseases, even in extremely small amounts. But not until the 1970's did we stop adding it to everything we could, even clothing, utensils, bedding. The last US asbestos mine closed (pause) in 2002.

Ants / myrmex - the Argentine ants as a supercolony

Of course I study ants. "Look to the Ant" is still a great admonition, and it still invokes many of the great Myths of our BELIEFS -- since almost everything everyone believes about ants is wrong. And since its arrival around 1891 in New Orleans, possibly aboard a coffee shipment from South America, the Argentine ant has been savaging the entire northern hemisphere. They are now the most common arthropod in California.

I was amazed to discover a laboratory right here at UCI devoted to the distillation of scents the ants use to communicate. The idea, I guess, is to try to convince them that they are not all members of one massive tribe. If they would feud amongst themselves like their South American cousins, perhaps the civil unrest in their colonies would allow natives to recover and flourish. On the other hand, aren't the fire ants already here as well? Given that choice, can't we suffer the Argentines?