Temple of Linken

The Temple of Linken in 14,508.

The Temple of Linken (by 11,959 HE) in Huashengdun was built during the Old States period (11,776-12,304) of North American history. More than 2,500 years later it still stands on the banks of the Botuomake, at 38.889 North and 77.050 West, just 1200 metres west of the Broken Obelisk.

Linken was president of the Old States in the 11,800s and part of the cult of the Six Grandfathers (or Founding Fathers) in the 11,900s.

The temple was built by 11,959: its image appeared on coins from 11,959 to 12,008. On the other side of the coins is an image of Linken himself, recognizable by having a beard but no moustache.

An Old States coin from 11,983 showing Linken and his temple.

The temple, built in Greek Doric style, is 58 metres long, 36 metres wide and 30 metres high. It has 36 pillars made of marble, each one 13.4 metres tall. Right above each pillar on the frieze is the name of an Old State written in Roman alphabetics and a Western year in Roman numerals. The last one listed is Neihuada with the Western year of 1,864 (11,864 HE).

The Old States listed on the frieze of the Temple of Linken.

Inside the temple was a huge statue of Linken sitting on a throne, covered in gold and facing the rising sun. It is long gone. The gold, if not the statue itself, likely disappeared during the First Time of Troubles (12,304-12,407), when the Old States sank into a period of warlordism that gave rise to the Middle States (12,407-12,812).

On the western wall, behind where the statue once stood, it says, in Old States English:

In this temple
As people’s voice
For whom to save the union [of the Old States]
Yabolahan Linken’s memory
It is eternal

On the other temple walls are words of Linken to his countrymen during the war between the southern slave states and the northern free states. He says the Old States were founded 87 years ago. Some scholars argue that means Linken was president in 11,874, others say 11,863. The Temple of Linken can be used to support either date: the first Old State is dated to 11,787, yet the list stops at 11,864, which is 88 years after 11,776, the year on the statue of the Green Goddess of Manhadun.

The cult of the Six Grandfathers worshipped the six presidents of the Old States considered to be the wisest. We can only be sure of four of them: Linken, Jiefuxun, Luosifu, and Huashengdun (namesake of the capital). They are the ones on the monument of the Six Grandfathers of the Plains. The two missing Grandfathers apparently fell out of favour. Some scholars say they were Fulankelin of the Broken Bell and Kennidi of the Grassy Knoll. Like the other four, they appeared on coins at the height of the cult, though less frequently.

State cult: The cult was pushed by the Old States government, but even at its height the images of Linken were never as common among the common people as those of Yesu or Maliya. Linken promised only Emancipation, Yesu promised Resurrection from the dead – and Maliya was his mother, believed to be in heaven, who had a great temple in the neighbouring country of Moxige.

– Abagond, 14,517 HE.

See also:

•  The Green Goddess of Manhadun – written in Old States English with Western dates
• The Six Grandfathers of the Plains
  • Linken
  • Huashengdun
  • Jiefuxun
• Western years
• Old States
  • Huashengdun – the capital
• Yesu
• Maliya of Moxige

564

Sister Rosetta Tharpe ft Albert Ammons: That’s All

Sister Rosetta Tharpe sings and plays guitar, Albert Ammons is on piano. This is arguably one of the first recorded rock and roll songs, almost 20 years ahead of its time, hiding in plain sight: they are playing at Carnegie Hall in New York on December 23rd 1938. That is 79 years ago this coming week.

This past week it was announced that she will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 14th 2018. As the Godmother of Rock and Roll, it is long overdue. She was mainly known as a gospel singer in her own time, but her fans, like Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry, would go on to copy her guitar playing, giving us rock and roll as one of the main styles of music in the US.

See also:

• songs, the 1930s
• Chuck Berry: Johnny B. Goode

Lyrics:

I’m gonna tell you the natural facts
That the man don’t understand the good book right and that’s all
That’s all

You know what?
We got to have more love
More understanding everyday of our lives
And that’s all
Yeah

When you see folks jump from this or that
They don’t know they don’t know where the devil’s at
That’s all
That’s all

They got to have more love, more understanding
Everyday of their lives I tell ya that’s all

Listen, people fighting one another
And think they’re doing swell
And all they want is your money
And you can go to heeeey

That’s all
That’s all

Y’all got to have religion, yeah, I tell ya that’s all
Now he can go to the college
Go to the schools
Haven’t got religion he is an educated fool

That’s all
Yeah, that’s all

He got to have more love, more understanding
Everyday of our lives and that’s all

Source: FANDOM.

Why did White women vote for Roy Moore?

About 63% of White women voted for Republican Roy Moore in the Alabama election for US Senate in 2017 – despite the fact that he had been banned from a mall in his early 30s for hitting on teenage girls, despite the fact that eight of those women came out against him, one accusing him of sexually molesting her at age 14, another of attempted rape at 16.

Meanwhile only 2% of Black women voted for Moore. They voted heavily for Democrat Doug Jones.

White Evangelical Protestants: Most Jones voters were Black, most Moore voters were White Evangelical Protestants.

Sex: The sex scandal changed 7.5% minds at most. Which is low. The average sex scandal moves the needle by 13 points. That might be partly due to Trump:

• In 2011 only 30% of White Evangelical Protestants thought that “an elected official can behave ethically even if they have committed transgressions in their personal life.”
• By 2016 that number had gone up to 72%. In 2016, 81% of White Evangelical Protestants voted for Trump nationwide despite his sex scandal. Almost the same number, 80%, supported Moore in Alabama.

But in practice it was not quite as bad as all that. Nearly everyone who believed the allegations against Moore voted for Jones – or sat at home. Few chose Moore as the lesser of two evils (6%).

Only 36% of evangelicals nationwide believed the allegations against Moore. They generally give Republicans a greater benefit of the doubt. For example, most believe the sexual allegations against Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer and Bill Clinton, say, but not those against Donald Trump, Bill O’Reilly – or Roy Moore.

In the case of Moore, it means they believe one man over eight women. Men might be expected to take Moore’s side, but women?

• NBC News blames internalized misogyny: women are brainwashed by men’s sexism to value men and their words over that of women.
• US News & World Report calls it the patriarchal bargain: women will side with men over other women for selfish ends.

The reason White women are more affected by this than Black women is because their men are generally more powerful. In effect, White women are the House Negroes of the sisterhood. Thus Trump. Thus Moore. Thus Black women “saving” Alabama.

Religion: Moore wrapped himself in religion, yet none of the top White Evangelical pastors in Alabama would support him. But neither would they openly condemn him. Their silence was strange. Like Fox News, they are riding a beast they cannot control. The beast is made up of salt-of-the-earth White people who like Trump and Moore – in part because Trump and Moore are not afraid to speak their minds, unlike their own pastors and cable news blowhards.

Race: Moore is even more openly racist than Trump. In 2017 he said the last time America was great was not, say, during the 1950s of his childhood, but the 1850s of slavery. No surprise that only 2% of Black women voted for him while 63% of White women did.

– Abagond, 2017.

Sources: especially NBC News (image, internalized misogyny), US News & World Report, Washington Post (exit polls), Christianity Today (72%, Matt Lauer, etc), FiveThirtyEight (moving the needle 13 points), New Yorker (silent pastors).

See also:

• Roy Moore
• White Evangelical Protestants
• Fox News
  • Bill O’Reilly
• House Negro
• The Death of Outrage

547

a history of the NBC logo

NBC (1926- ), the National Broadcasting Company, is one of the main television networks in the US. Before that it was one of its main radio networks. Here is how its logo has changed over the past 91 years:

1926-1931: Red Network logo. NBC was the first nationwide radio network in the US. Thus the outline of the US (Alaska and Hawaii were not yet states) and the radio waves. This was the logo of its Red Network. NBC would get such a lock on the country’s radio waves that in 1943 the government forced it to sell its Blue Network, which became ABC.

Click to listen.

1929-present: NBC chimes: the musical notes G, E, C, still heard to this day. An audio logo, not a visual one. Which makes sense for a radio network, something heard but not seen. When I was on my 1949 media diet, one of the things that took me by surprise was hearing the NBC chimes. I did not know they went back that far. But in 1949 they were already 20 years old. It was a sound cue for engineers who operated the network.

1931-1942

1942-1946: Now a radio microphone, turning sound waves into radio waves.

1946-1952: No more radio waves: NBC was becoming mainly a television network. It put its television transmitter on top of the Empire State Building in 1932, broadcasting to the World’s Fair in 1939. In 1941 it became Channel 4 in New York, the first commercial television station to go on the air in the US. In 1947 “Meet the Press” made the jump to television.

1952-1953

1954-1959: a xylophone to represent the chimes.

Click to see animation.

1956-1975: The Laramie Peacock: NBC was owned by RCA, which was trying to sell colour televisions. Thus the bird of many colours. Often animated so that the feathers unfold. Notice that the 11 feathers look like paintbrushes. Designed in-house by John Graham.

Click to see animation.

1959-1975: The Snake: Also designed by John Graham! Animated as if drawn by snakes to the sound of the chimes. The look was more in line with serious company logos of the time than the Peacock.

1976-1979: Trapezoid N: Even NBC’s own television show, “Saturday Night Live”, made fun of this one. NBC paid $750,000 to have this designed by Lippincott & Margulies – and then it turned out it looked too much like a logo used by a public television station in Nebraska! So NBC had to spend another $855,000 to settle that lawsuit. But it gets worse:

1979-1986: The Proud N: a mess – and did not even scale down well.

1986-present: designed by Swiss artist Steff Geissbuhler of Chermayeff & Geismar Associates. Simple, pretty, scales well, even works all in black. The feathers have been reduced to six, for the divisions of NBC: News (yellow), Sports (orange), Entertainment (red), Stations (purple), Network (blue), and Productions (green). The peacock now looks to the right – to the future (since Roman letters run left to right). The “NBC”, in a customized Futura font, is optional.

2011-2013: feathers made to look more three-dimensional.

2013-present: made to look like a computer or smartphone icon, complete with shading to suggest the overhead fluorescent lighting of an office.

– Abagond, 2017.

Source: mainly Adobe Create magazine and Logopedia.

See also:

• NBC
  • MSNBC
• television
• 1949 media diet
  • notes, part 2
• also visually through time:
  • Roman alphabet – the letters N, B, C go back even further in time, some 4,000 years, all the way back to Egyptian hieroglyphics
  • human evolution, the last 4 billion years
  • Google logo
  • telephones
  • the Ford
  • Times Square

567

 

 

Philip Brailsford

Philip “Mitch” Brailsford (1990- ), a White American killer cop, gunned down Daniel Shaver, an unarmed White man, father of two, who was crying, pleading for his life:

“Please do not shoot me.”

Video of the shooting was not made public till after a jury cleared Brailsford of second-degree murder on December 8th 2017.

The night in question: On January 18th 2016, police in Mesa, Arizona received an emergency call from La Quinta Inn:

“A couple of the guests – I’m an employee – they’ve come to me and they’ve told me that somebody is pointing a rifle outside of one of the windows in our building.”

Police got to the hallway outside Room 502 and ordered everyone out of the room. A man and a woman came out. The man was Shaver.

Police ordered them to get on the ground. They did.

Simon Says: Instead of simply putting handcuffs on them, Sergeant Charles Langley had them play a sick and horrifying sort of game of Simon Says. They were to crawl down the hallway towards six police officers who had their guns drawn. If they got any of the instructions shouted at them wrong, the police would shoot: “you may not survive it.”

Sergeant Langley: “You listen. You obey.”

The woman won the gruesome game, Shaver lost:

SHAVER: [on his knees] Please do not shoot me. [interrupted]

LANGLEY: THEN LISTEN TO MY INSTRUCTIONS.

SHAVER: I’m trying to just do what you say.

LANGLEY: DON’T TALK! LISTEN!!! HANDS STRAIGHT UP IN THE AIR! DO NOT PUT YOUR HANDS DOWN FOR ANY REASON!!! YOU THINK YOU’RE GONNA FALL – YOU BETTER FALL ON YOUR FACE – YOUR HANDS GO BACK INTO THE SMALL OF YOUR BACK OR DOCK WE ARE GOING TO SHOOT YOU! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?

SHAVER: Yes, sir. [sobbing]

LANGLEY: CRAWL TOWARDS ME! CRAWL TOWARDS ME!

SHAVER: Yes, sir. [sobbing, crawling, then reaches to pull up his basketball shorts]

LANGLEY: Don’t —

BRAILSFORD’S AR-15: BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

Brailsford thought Shaver was reaching for a gun. He never saw a gun. There was no gun. Brailsford was the only one of the six officers to shoot.

The second time Shaver’s wife saw the video she went into convulsions.

Protect and serve.

Shaver with his wife and two children.

In Room 502 the police found – an airgun (BB gun). Shaver was on the road from Texas, making money shooting birds that get inside Walmarts and other businesses. Thus the airgun. He invited a man and woman he had met to his room for drinks. They got drunk.

Charged with murder: Brailsford was shocked that he was charged with murder. He thought he had done nothing wrong. The police union agreed. And, after a six-week murder trial, so did the jury. Brailsford had said to them the magic words: I feared for my life.

The Mesa police department, where his father had served for 19 years, fired him. They knew something the jury was not allowed to know: Brailsford had etched onto his AR-15 the words:

“YOU’RE FUCKED”

– Abagond, 2017.

Sources: mainly Google Images, The Atlantic, Vox, Heavy, and Lybio (transcript).

See also:

• killer cops
  • Michael Slager
  • Betty Jo Shelby
  • Johannes Mehserle
• The BB Gun Club
  • Tamir Rice
  • John Crawford
• unarmed Whites killed by police
  • Jeremy Mardis
  • Justine Damond
• White killers taken alive by police
  • Dylann Roof
  • Robert Lewis Dear
  • James Holmes
  • Eric Rudolph
  • Craig Stephen Hicks

565

 

Jhené Aiko: Eternal Sunshine

Remarks:

This was on her album “Souled Out” (2014). It never charted. Her brother died of cancer in 2012 and she nearly died a year later in a car accident. The video is dedicated to her brother:

“To #4 from #5, You are my eternal sunshine.”

See also:

• songs, the 2010s

Lyrics:

Is it strange for me to say that
If I were to die today
There’s not a thing I would change
I’ve lived well
Maybe I have made mistakes and been through my fair share of pain
But all in all, it’s been okay, I’ve lived well

And the more that I see, the more that I know
I don’t know anything, at all
Like the more that I breathe, and start to go slow
Oh, one of many things, I can only recall

All of the good things, good things
All of the good things, good things
Only the good, the good, the good
Only the good, the good, the good

All of the good things, good things
All of the good things, good things
Only the good, the good, the good
Only the good

Living on Sycamore street, and spend your weekends on the beach
We were free, to be everything we dreamed
Flying kites and water fights
Summer nights, we’d ride our bikes
On over hill, and dare our heights
Man I swear

The more that I see, the more that I know
I don’t know anything, at all
And the more that I breathe, and start to go slow
Oh, one of many things, I can only recall

All of the good things, good things
All of the good things, good things
Only the good, the good, the good
Only the good, the good, the good

All of the good things, good things
All of the good things, good things
Only the good, the good, the good
Only the good, the good, the good

Only the good things, good things
Only the good things, good things
Only the good, the good, the good
Only the good

Source: Songfacts.

Michael Slager

Michael Slager (1981- ) was the White American killer cop who shot Walter Scott, an unarmed Black man, four times in the back in North Charleston, South Carolina. That was on April 4th 2015. It was caught on citizen video for the world to see. Slager just got 20 years in federal prison for that, no chance of parole.

The state murder trial last year in 2016 ended in a hung jury. Despite damning video showing Slager shooting Scott in the back as he ran away and then planting a taser next to him, and despite his lies, one White man on the jury said:

“I cannot in good conscience consider a guilty verdict.”

The jury was 92% White in a county that is less than 70% White.

Plea bargain: A retrial was set for August of this year, but in May Slager got the state to drop the murder charge by pleading guilty to a pending federal civil rights charge of using excessive force. A judge would determine his sentence later in the year at a hearing. His lawyers told him he would not likely get more than ten years.

While Slager was in jail his son was born. He hoped to get out before his son turned ten. (At one point Slager was in a cell next Dylann Roof, he who carried out the Charleston Massacre two months after the Scott shooting.)

Sentencing: The sentencing hearing took place this past week. The judge determined that Slager was guilty of second-degree murder. That meant he could not give him less than 19 years. He could have given him life in prison, but thought that 20 years in prison for a former police officer would be bad enough. Slager will not even get to see his son graduate from high school.

Slager did not apologize to Scott’s family till this week.

Scott’s parents and brothers.

Feared for his life: At the murder trial, Slager said Scott took hold of his taser:

“In my mind it was total fear … I pulled my firearm and I pulled the trigger. I fired until the threat was stopped, like I’m trained to do.”

If Scott ever had hold of his taser, he no longer did when he was running away and was shot in the back four times, one right through the heart. Slager seems calm not fearful in the video.

Not just a bad apple: Some of Slager’s fellow officers, even supervisors, said that Slager did what he was supposed to do. And as many as six on the jury were unwilling to find him guilty even of manslaughter. This stuff goes way beyond Slager.

Quotas: Slager was expected to pull over at least three motorists every shift. He told Scott he pulled him over because his third brake light was out. South Carolina law requires only one working brake light.

Reform: In the wake of the shooting, the Department of Justice (DOJ) agreed to do a review of the North Charleston police department and work with it on reforms. Jeff Sessions put an end to that.

– Abagond, 2017.

See also:

• Walter Scott
• Jeff Sessions
• Dylann Roof
  • Charleston Massacre
• the police
  • slave patrol
  • killer cop
  • quotas and policing
    • Adrian Schoolcraft
    • Michael Wood

529

New Angouleme

Detail from Girolamo Ruscelli’s world map of 1561.

To begin at the beginning, here is the very first thing ever written about New Angouleme:

“Once we were anchored off the coast and well sheltered, we did not want to run any risks without knowing anything about the river mouth. So we took the small boat up this river to land which we found densely populated.

“The people were almost the same as the others [seen elsewhere], dressed in birds’ feathers of various color and they came toward us joyfully, uttering loud cries of wonderment, and showing us safest place to beach the boat.

“We went up this river for about half a league [2km], where we saw that it formed a beautiful lake, about three leagues [12km] in circumference.

“About 30 small boats ran to and from across the lake with innumerable people aboard who were crossing from one side to the other to see us.

“Suddenly, as often happens in sailing, a violent unfavorable wind blew in from the sea, and we were forced to return to the ship, leaving the land with much regret on account of its favorable conditions and beauty; we think was not without some properties of value, since all the hills showed signs of minerals.”

That was on Tuesday March 1st 1524 in the land of Francesca (March 11th on the Gregorian calendar). The harbour was named New Angouleme after King Francis I of France, formerly known as the Count of Angouleme.

New Angouleme was an obstacle:

“My intention on this voyage was to reach Cathay [China] and the extreme eastern coast of Asia, but I did not expect to find such an obstacle of new land as I have found; and if for some reason I did expect to find it, I estimated there would be some strait to get through to the Eastern Ocean. […] Aristotle supports this theory by arguments of various analogies …”

Aristotle back then was the last word in science.

In 1525, on a second visit, the “lake” was found to be the mouth of a river, which they named the San Antonio River. New Angouleme’s part of Francesca was named the Land of Esteban Gomez.

In 1529 New Angouleme appeared on a world map for the first time. It had that name throughout the 1500s.

In 1664 it became the possession of an English duke and has been named after him ever since: New York. Francesca is the Atlantic coast from North Carolina to Nova Scotia. The San Antonio River is now named the Hudson, after someone who arrived in the same harbour 85 years later, also looking for a shortcut to China.

New York harbour in 3978 as played by Point Dume Beach in Malibu, California in 1968.

The writer is Giovanni da Verrazzano – spelled with two z’s, not one, like the bridge that now crosses where he once sailed. He was a warmed-over pirate from Florence who sailed for France.

The account is the first written account we have of the Delaware Indians, long before the settler colonialists of Anglo America stereotyped them as “merciless Indian Savages” and their land as virgin wilderness.

– Abagond, 2017.

Sources: mainly Verrazzano (1524) and the New York Map Society (2008).

See also:

• Delaware Indians
  • and where are they now
• New York
• Anglo Americans
  • the three pillars of White American racism
    • settler colonialism
      • the term “savage”
      • The Virgin Wilderness Myth – one of the lies they teach at US high schools
• Guanahani – another first contact story
• the science of the time:
  • Aristotle
  • Ptolemy
• Valladolid Debate – would Aristotle wipe out the Indians?
• Gregorian calendar

591

Michael Flynn

Flynn at Trump Tower, 2016. Via Blasting News.

Michael Flynn (1958- ) is a retired three-star general of the US Army. He was Donald Trump’s top military adviser when he ran for president in 2016 and, briefly in 2017, his National Security Advisor, a position held by the likes of Henry Kissinger, Condoleezza Rice, and Susan Rice. He was fired for lying about secret contacts with Russia!

On December 1st 2017, having been caught lying to the FBI about the very same thing, Flynn turned state’s evidence in Robert Mueller’s Russiagate investigation.

From how Trump and Mueller have been acting, Flynn seems knows something big.

Depending on who you ask, Flynn is:

• “the most brilliant intelligence officer of his generation”,
• “unhinged”,
• “a rat on acid”,
• “refreshing”,
• “not a linear thinker”,
• “a fine person”,
• “kooky”,
• “ferociously intelligent”,
• “right-wing nutty”.

From 2004 to 2010, under General Stanley McChrystal, Flynn is a rising star in military intelligence, first in Iraq and then in Afghanistan. He changes how the US military goes after jihadists, going after information, not body count; taking down networks, not just top people. He saves thousands of lives. In 2006 he was the one who found and brought down al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

In 2012 President Obama puts him in charge of the Pentagon’s Defence Intelligence Agency, the DIA. Flynn tries to reform the DIA without apparent rhyme or reason. Chaos goes up, morale goes down. The DIA starts to work around him.

In 2013, the GRU, the Russian counterpart to the DIA, invites him to Russia. He goes, becoming the first US military officer to set foot inside the GRU – the same outfit that will later take part in hacking the 2016 US election to help Trump win.

Flynn facts: While at the DIA Flynn believes untrue stuff like:

• 75% of mobile phones are bought by Africans.
• Hezbollah has killed more Americans than al-Qaeda.

They are called “Flynn facts”.

In 2014 he is forced out of the DIA a year early and into early retirement from the army. He had been in the army since 1981, fought in Grenada, even missed his son’s wedding while in Iraq.

Since then he has received money from the likes of:

• the Turkish government (secretly);
• Kaspersky Lab, a Russian cybersecurity firm;
• RT, a news outlet run by the Russian government.

US army officers, like presidents, are not allowed to receive money from foreign governments without the permission of Congress.

In December 2015 Flynn is invited to Russia for RT’s tenth anniversary party. He sits next to President Putin himself. They paid Flynn $45,000 to be there.

In February 2016, two months later, Flynn, a lifelong Democrat, backs Trump, a Republican. He is the first general to do so. He tweets stuff like:

“Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL”

He sees Islam not as a religion but a political ideology, “like a cancer”, bent on destroying Judaeo-Christian civilization under the leadership of Iran.

In July 2016 he speaks at the Republican National Convention. Leading chants against Hillary Clinton of “Lock her up!”, Flynn says:

“if I did a tenth — a tenth — of what she did, I would be in jail today.”

– Abagond, 2017, 2018.

See also:

• Donald Trump
• Russiagate
  • Russian hackers
  • The Comey hearing – wherein we find out Trump fired James Comey, the head of the FBI, to protect Flynn.
• Hillary Clinton
• RT
• Islamophobia
• “clash of civilizations”
• jihad
• Hezbollah
• Iran
• Iraq – has a bit on al-Zarqawi
• Afghanistan
  • The Operators – a book about General McChrystal and the War in Afghanistan.
• Henry Kissinger
  • The Time of Illusion – how Kissinger indirectly brought down two presidents
• Condoleezza Rice

578

Rick James ft Teena Marie: Fire & Desire

Remarks:

They do not make songs like this any more – and this one did not even chart. It appeared on his album “Street Songs” (1981), right after “Super Freak”.

See also:

• songs, the 1980s
• Rick James, Smokey Robinson: Ebony Eyes
• Teena Marie
  • Teena Marie: Portuguese Love
  • Teena Marie: Out on a Limb

Lyrics:

Wow
It’s really good to see you again, baby
And I must admit you’re looking very, very, very nice these days
I guess life must be treating you well
Oh, me?
Well, I’ve just been doin’ the same ol’ thing I’ve always been doin’, you know
I’ve got a new lady now
And it’s a little different then it was when I was with you
You know, I think back to when we met
The way I used to be and the cold way I used to act
But more than that, I think of how you changed me with your love and sensitivity
Remember when I used to

Love them and leave them
That’s what I used to do
Use and abuse them
Then I laid eyes on you, it was pain before pleasure
That was my claim to fame
With every measure, baby
Tasted teardrop stains, yeah
I was cold as ice long ago, baby, baby
I wasn’t very, very, very nice, you know
Sugar, sugar, sugar
Then I kissed your lips and you tuned on my fire, baby
And you burned me up within your flame
Took me a little higher
Made me live again, you turned on my fire, baby
Then you showed me what a love could do
Fire and desire, baby
Feel it comin’ through
And I thank you, baby

Oh, how I thank you, baby
You taught me so much and you showed mw so much and love and insensitivity
That since you’ve been gone I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way before
You know it’s funny how a man can change so quickly from a cold-blooded person
Thinkin’ he’s God gift to women
Remember how I used to do that?
I must have been crazy then
Remember when you used to

Love them and leave them
Oh, that’s what I used to do
Use them and abuse them, whoa
Then I laid eyes on you
It was pain before pleasure
Oh, that was my claim to fame
With every measure
Tasted your teardrop stains, yeah
You were cold as ice long ago baby, baby
I-I wasn’t, I-I wasn’t very nice, I know, whoo!
Sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar
Then I kissed your lips and you
(You turned on) turned (you turned on) on
(You turned on my fire) my fire, baby
Then you showed me what a love could do
Fire and desire (fire and desire)
Feelin’ good to you (feelin’ good to you)
You turned on my fire (fire), baby (oh, baby)
And you burned me up within your flame (you burned me, you burned me)
Fire and desire (fire and desire)
And we’re both to blame, both to blame

You know
I guess I think we both said a little too much today (no, ooh)
After all, Tee, you’re kind of with somebody else
I’m kind of livin’ with somebody
But please do me a favor just before you go (what is it, baby?)
Just put your arms around me and hold me like you used (I want to hold you tight)
Tell me “Rick” (oh, oh) “everything is gonna be alright”
(Everything, everything, everything is gonna be alright) put your arms around me
Put your arms around me (ooh)

Oh, baby
Oh, baby

Source: SongMeanings

 

Meghan Markle

Markle in 2014.

Meghan Markle (1981- ), a US actress, became the most googled woman in the world in 2016 when it became known she was dating Prince Harry of England. They are set to marry in May 2018. She will no doubt be called Princess Meghan even though strictly speaking she will probably be a duchess.

Markle in 2014, two years before she met Prince Harry:

“Little girls dream of being princesses. I, for one, was all about She-Ra, Princess of Power.”

Markle with her mother in 2017.

Biracial: Markle’s mother is Black, her father White. She considers herself biracial:

“While my mixed heritage may have created a grey area surrounding my self-identification, keeping me with a foot on both sides of the fence, I have come to embrace that. To say who I am, to share where I’m from, to voice my pride in being a strong, confident mixed-race woman.”

Queen Charlotte in 1761.

One Drop: Prince Harry is probably part Black too thanks to Queen Charlotte, great grandmother of Queen Victoria and namesake of Charlottesville, Virginia. European royalty in general has a certain amount of Moorish blood by way of Spain and Portugal.

Racism: An early sign that Prince Harry was serious about Miss Markle came in November 2016 when he condemned the “racial undertones” of news about her and the “outright racism” of Internet trolls.

The British royal family is not known for speaking out against racism. In fact, Prince Harry himself in 2005 once appeared at a party dressed as a Nazi, swastika and all.

Prince Harry in 2005.

Being loved to death: Prince Harry is also concerned for her physical safety. His mother, Princess Diana, died in a car crash in 1997 when photographers were chasing her through the streets of Paris. He was only 12.

Prince Harry, aka Henry Windsor, is currently fifth in the line of succession to the crown. Ahead of him are his father, older brother, and his older brother’s two children (with a third on the way). His grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, is still queen at age 91.

How to meet a prince: Both Meghan and Harry are philanthropists and met in those circles in 2016. She was global ambassador for World Vision Canada.

Gina Torres and Markle in 2013.

The Before Time:

• From 2011 to 2017 Markle played Rachel Zane, a paralegal on the US television show “Suits”. Gina Torres, power suits and all, is on that show. It gets about 2 million viewers.
• From 2014 to 2017 Markle ran a lifestyle website, The Tig, where she wrote about food, fashion, beauty, and travel.
• Growing up in Los Angeles, her neighbourhood was so White that people thought her mother was a servant. Her father was a lighting director for television shows like “General Hospital” and “Married with Children”. Her mother brought her up to be a global citizen. By age 11 Markle was writing to the First Lady (then Hillary Clinton) about a sexist ad – and got it changed.

Footer for The Tig, 2014.

Her causes: gender equality, clean water in Africa, food banks in North America, slavery (against).

Wild prediction: Black people in the US and Britain will stick up for her but she will not stick up for them.

– Abagond, 2017.

Update (May 19th 2018): Meghan and Harry will be married on Saturday May 19th 2018 at noon London time. That is 7.00am in New York, 4.00am in California and 11:00 GMT. You can watch it live on the Royal Family’s YouTube channel starting a hour beforehand. 

Update (May 20th 2018): Some wedding pictures:

See also:

• Meghan Markle: More Than an ‘Other’ – more on her racial identity. See her with unstraightened hair as a child.
• Oprah’s interview of Harry and Meghan – in 2021
• biracial
• One Drop Rule
• Gina Torres
• Belle – being Black and rich in England in the 1700s
• Race in Britain in the 2010s
• Charlottesville riot
• Some of my other predictions

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Meghan Markle: More Than an ‘Other’

Note: I will be doing a post on Meghan Markle, but in the meantime here are two excerpts from an essay she wrote in 2015 about her racial identity:

Markle in 1992. Via Radar Online.

There was a mandatory census I had to complete in my English class [in seventh grade] – you had to check one of the boxes to indicate your ethnicity: white, black, Hispanic or Asian. There I was (my curly hair, my freckled face, my pale skin, my mixed race) looking down at these boxes, not wanting to mess up, but not knowing what to do. You could only choose one, but that would be to choose one parent over the other – and one half of myself over the other. My teacher told me to check the box for Caucasian. ‘Because that’s how you look, Meghan,’ she said. I put down my pen. Not as an act of defiance, but rather a symptom of my confusion. I couldn’t bring myself to do that, to picture the pit-in-her-belly sadness my mother would feel if she were to find out. So, I didn’t tick a box. I left my identity blank – a question mark, an absolute incomplete – much like how I felt.

When I went home that night, I told my dad what had happened. He said the words that have always stayed with me: ‘If that happens again, you draw your own box.’

…

Markle in 2013. Via Wikipedia.

At the end of season two [of “Suits”], the producers … cast the role of Rachel’s father as a dark-skinned African-American man, played by the brilliant Wendell Pierce. I remember the tweets when that first episode of the Zane family aired, they ran the gamut from: ‘Why would they make her dad black? She’s not black’ to ‘Ew, she’s black? I used to think she was hot.’ The latter was blocked and reported. The reaction was unexpected, but speaks of the undercurrent of racism that is so prevalent, especially within America. On the heels of the racial unrest in Ferguson and Baltimore, the tensions that have long been percolating under the surface in the US have boiled over in the most deeply saddening way. And as a biracial woman, I watch in horror as both sides of a culture I define as my own become victims of spin in the media, perpetuating stereotypes and reminding us that the States has perhaps only placed bandages over the problems that have never healed at the root.

I, on the other hand, have healed from the base. While my mixed heritage may have created a grey area surrounding my self-identification, keeping me with a foot on both sides of the fence, I have come to embrace that. To say who I am, to share where I’m from, to voice my pride in being a strong, confident mixed-race woman. That when asked to choose my ethnicity in a questionnaire as in my seventh grade class, or these days to check ‘Other’, I simply say: ‘Sorry, world, this is not Lost and I am not one of The Others. I am enough exactly as I am.’

More at Elle UK.

See also:

• Meghan Markle
• biracial
  • Of mixed-race identities
  • growing up biracial (the black-and-white kind)
  • white fathers, black mothers
  • The term “Hapa”
• “Britain no longer has a serious race problem.” – already has a Markle thread
• Ferguson and Baltimore
• that question
  • Lacey Schwartz
  • Rosario Dawson
  • Zoe Saldana
  • Sandra Laing

Get Out

“Get Out” (2017) is a Hollywood horror film directed and written by Jordan Peele, he of the comedy duo Key & Peele. In the fashion of “The Stepford Wives” (1975), it is a grim parody of White Liberal racism. Metaphors abound.

Unlike nearly all Hollywood horror films, this one has a Black hero: Chris Washington. His White girlfriend, Rose Armitage, wants them to spend the weekend with her parents out in the country. He agrees.

Her father tries to prove how “down” he is with Black people by saying he would have voted for Obama a third time and saying things like “my man” and “thang”. Ugh.

At a garden party full of old White people, they too try to prove how not-racist they are by saying nice things about Black people – all based on stereotypes: Blacks are good at sports, good in bed, etc. Peele shows how creepy “positive” racism can be.

So far this is just autobiography, not parody.

Good White Person: It is not just Chris who finds these remarks uncomfortable. So does Rose. She is the Good White Person of the film, the one White audiences can tell themselves they would be like.

The sunken place: Rose’s mother, Missy, is a psychiatrist. She hypnotizes Chris to cure his smoking habit. While hypnotized, Chris feels like he is falling down a dark hole. He screams but nothing comes out. Missy:

“Now you’re in the sunken place.”

Black people: All weekend Chris sees only three Black people: Georgina and Walter, the servants, and Logan, a party guest. They all act strange.

CHRIS: All I know is sometimes, if there are too many White people, I get nervous, you know?

GEORGINA: (stares, then tries not to cry, then smiles and laughs as a tear rolls down her face) Oh. Oh, no. No. No. No! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Aren’t you something? That’s not my experience, not at all. The Armitages are so good to us. They treat us like family (smile).

It is like there are two persons inside her, the crying one a Black person trying to get out.

Gaslighting: Everyone plays down Chris’s concerns. Only when he calls Rod, his friend back in the city, does he hear the clear voice of reason.

The truth comes out: Chris tries to get out but Rose cannot find the car keys. Then her Good White Person mask slips from her face: she drew him out to the country to have him sold at auction. For a brain transplant. He would become a spectator in his own body as a White person’s brain took over.

Rose’s father – is a brain surgeon.

Georgina and Walter have the brains of Rose’s grandparents.

Chris tries to fight his way free but Rose’s mother already has him under her hypnotic control.

“Now you’re in the sunken place.”

Whew! A good thing in real life White people never try to control Black bodies or get inside their heads.

Thanks to Satanforce and Mary Burrell for suggesting this film.

– Abagond, 2017.

See also:

• Key & Peele: Negrotown
• White Liberals
• stereotype
• gaslighting
• internalized racism
  • Indian miseducation
  • Mis-Education of the Negro
• Frantz Fanon
  • Black Skin, White Masks
• cultural appropriation
• wigger
• Rachel Dolezal

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Janice Marie Johnson: Boogie Oogie Oogie

Johnson wrote this song with the late Perry Kibble. It became a huge hit in 1978 for their band, A Taste of Honey, going to #1 on the US pop and R&B charts, #3 in Britain.

Johnson performs it here at the Native American Music Awards in 2015. She won a Nammy in 2002 for Best Producer and in 2008 she was inducted into their Hall of Fame. She is of Stockbridge-Munsee ancestry. They are the Delaware (Lenape) Indians who wound up in Wisconsin.

See also:

• songs, the 1970s
• Welcome to Native American Heritage Month 2017
• The Delaware Indians – where are they now?

Lyrics:

If you’re thinkin’ you’re too cool to boogie
Boy oh boy, have I got news for you
Everybody here tonight must boogie
Let me tell ya, you are no exception to the rule

Get on up on the floor
‘Cause we’re gonna boogie oogie oogie
Till you just can’t boogie no more (no more boogie)
Boogie no more
You can’t boogie no more (no more boogie)
Boogie no more, listen to the music

There’s no time to waste, let’s get this show on the road
Listen to the music and let your body flow
The sooner we begin, the longer we’ve got to groove
Listen to the music and let your body move

Now get on up on the floor
‘Cause we’re gonna boogie oogie oogie
Till you just can’t boogie no more (no more boogie)
Boogie no more
You can’t boogie no more (no more boogie)
Boogie no more, listen to my bass here

Get down, boogie oogie oogie
Get down, boogie oogie oogie
Get down, boogie oogie oogie
Get down

‘Oumuamua

As seen through a telescope (composite image). via ESO/ K. Meech et al

An artist’s impression.

1I/2017 U1 (discovered 2017), better known as ‘Oumuamua (oh-MOO-ah-MOO-ah), is an asteroid from another star, maybe a piece of a broken moon. It is the first interstellar object discovered in our Solar System.

At first astronomers thought it was a comet, but it had no tail. Then they thought it was just an ordinary asteroid – but it was going way too fast for the Sun’s gravity and did not come from the Zodiac part of the sky, meaning it probably came from another star.

Timeline of when it passes the orbits of different planets:

• 2017: Earth (October 14th), Mars (November 1st)
• 2018: Jupiter (May)
• 2019: Saturn (January)
• 2020:
• 2021:
• 2022: Neptune
• 2023:
• 2024: Pluto

Name: ‘Oumuamua was given a Hawaiian name, probably since it was discovered in Hawaii. The name means “scout” or “a messenger from afar arriving first”.

Origin: The constellation of Lyra. It probably came from a nearby star in that direction, but not Vega.

Destination: The constellation of Pegasus.

Size: 400 metres by 40 metres – almost as wide as an American football field but four times longer – or about as long as the Empire State Building is tall.

Material: Rock, maybe metals. It seems to be made of the same stuff as asteroids in the Kuiper Belt, out where Pluto is. So its native star system cannot be too different from ours.

Colour: Dark red, probably from being hit by cosmic rays for millions of years. It has been wandering between the stars for at least 100 million years.

Shape: Like a cigar.  It is ten times longer than it is wide. No one knows how it got that way. It is not a natural shape: of the 750,000 asteroids and comets we know of, none are more than three times longer than they are wide.

Is it a spaceship? Karen Meech, of the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy which discovered it, says:

“Our observations are entirely consistent with it being a natural object”

Science fiction: As maybe you can imagine, there is a science fiction story that starts out just like this. In “Rendezvous with Rama” (1973) by Arthur C. Clarke, astronomers in 2131 discover what they think is an asteroid that came from beyond the Solar System. It turns out to be a spaceship. They even discover it in the same way, by looking out for anything that might hit the earth.

The discovery: It was discovered on October 19th 2017 by Robert Weryk using the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawaii, one of the most powerful telescopes on Earth. It spends most of its time looking out for Near Earth Objects, the kind that could hit the Earth and wipe us out.

‘Oumuamua is moving away from the Earth. It is already too faint and faraway for telescopes on Earth to see. The Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes should be able to see it till at least the middle of December.

More to come: An interstellar object like ‘Oumuamua probably passes near the Earth maybe once a year, but till now our telescopes were not powerful enough to see them.

– Abagond, 2017.

See also:

• Pluto
• Proxima b – discovered in 2016
• Doomsday Machine – the applicable, hyperdramatic Star Trek episode
• The Golden Record – which we are sending to the stars

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