Today’s Google Starred Items: “NGO’s ‘They don’t give a dam about development’”
Nathalie Rothschild via Emeka Okafor via a.fricame.me: “The answer is because their interest in preserving the lifestyles of ‘indigenous peoples’ really means that they do not want Ethiopia and other poor nations to modernise and have what we in the West have: industrialisation.” The western style industrialization is not the problem to me. What the West subconsciously fears most is peoples of African descent no longer being psychologically dependent on the West to validate any productive, communal functionality. Once this return to basic conservative thought returns, the wise African version of industry will return. Until then, many of of our women will be willing to have their hair covered in acidic toxic waste and many of our men will be willing to perform empty rituals with expensive Bavarian cars.
“The Black-White Happiness Gap: Large, but Narrowing ”
Justin Wolfers: “The usual objective indicators suggest that there’s been disappointingly little progress in narrowing racial gaps in employment or income since the 1970s. And objective social indicators like educational attainment, incarceration rates or some measures of family structure tell an even grimmer story. Basically, the Civil Rights movement happened, and then we ran out of puff about three or four decades ago.” What’s missing from the article and probably the research (in “Subjective and Objective Indicators of Racial Happiness”) is the monumental presence of anti-depressants in all of North American “culture.” When whites are so “happy” why the need for so many happy pills?
“Falling in love costs you friends”
Jonathan Amos: “In the latest study, the team questioned 540 participants, aged 18 and over, about their relationships and the strain those relationships came under when a new romantic engagement was started. …The results confirmed the widely held view that love can lead to a smaller support network, with typically one family member and one friend being pushed out to accommodate the new lover.” One twist into this scientific data is the fact that many friendships are similar to sibling relationships and we all know about sibling rivalry. Also some relationships are based on sharing misery not intimacy—so when the “lover” shows up the party is over.
“Ayi Kwei Armah speaks”
Liberator Magazine: “Ayi Kwei Armah has been featured here previously. If you cannot tell from the bubbling enthusiasm that attend each of these posts, we here at libmag are very impressed with his work. To date, Armah is the only African writer I have encountered who has not only addressed the need of African writers to control their own artistic production, but has also shown contemporaries and future generations that it can be done through his example.”
“14th Poetry Africa in Durban”
Rethabile Masilo: “Poets from around South Africa, Africa and the world will descend on Durban for an exhilarating roller-coaster of words, rhythms and ideas at the 14th Poetry Africa international poetry festival, which takes place from 4 to 9 October. Organised by the Centre for Creative Arts (University of KwaZulu-Natal), and with principal support from the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund, Poetry Africa’…”
“We yawn because we care”
Maggie Koerth-Baker: “There's a growing collection of research showing that very young children, andpeople with autism spectrum disorders, don't succumb to contagious yawning. In fact, contagious yawning is currently thought to be related to the development of empathy and the ability to distinguish our own mental states from those of others. One study, done in 2007, even found that psychology students—who presumably spend a lot more time than average thinking about other people's mental states—were more susceptible to contagious yawning than engineering students.”
“The War on Drugs Has Failed”
Stanford “Neill” Franklin: “It pains me to know that there is a solution for preventing tragedy and nothing is being done because of ignorance, stubbornness, unsubstantiated fear and greed.” [see video]
“Ancient Nubians Drank Antibiotic-Laced Beer”
eldavojohn: “A new analysis of millennia old mummy bones (abstract; full article is paywalled) shows high concentrations of tetracycline, which indicates empirical knowledge and use of antibiotics—most likely consumed in beer. The researchers traced the source of the antibiotics to the soil bacteria streptomyces present in the grain used to ferment the beer. Astonishingly enough, ‘Even the tibia and skull belonging to a 4-year-old were full of tetracycline, suggesting that they were giving high doses to the child to try and cure him of illness.’ The extent of saturation in the bones leads the scientists to assert that the population regularly consumed tetracycline antibiotics knowing that it would cure certain sicknesses.”
“On Light Skin Privilege”
Tiffany B. Brown: “I’d be lying if I said my ethnic ambiguity wasn’t an advantage in the privilege Olympics. I’m the Safe Negro. That’s made especially so because I’m also a smarty-art Negro from a middle class family.” Here in the rasx() context, this issue has yet to be explored in depth. However, we do have present this poem: “Pearl Cleage: Feelings of a Very Light Negro as the Confrontation Approaches.”
“‘The Negro Motorists Green Book’: A Guide To Driving While Black”
Bossip.com: “…‘For almost three decades beginning in 1936, many African-American travelers relied on a booklet to help them decide where they could comfortably eat, sleep, buy gas, find a tailor or beauty parlor, shop on a honeymoon to Niagara Falls, or go out at night. In 1949, when the guide was 80 pages, there were only five recommended hotels in Atlanta. ’”
“Black migration in America: From hominy grits to cold shoulder”
The Economist: “The Great Migration is over but its legacy is intact. Ms Wilkerson does not exaggerate when she claims that it changed American culture. The migrants brought the blues and gave birth to jazz, rock, rhythm and blues and hip-hop. They influenced the language, food, dance and dress of America. They helped create an influential black electorate and black middle class. Quite an achievement for a people once required to step off the pavement when a white person approached.”
“10 Tips from Happy People”
HowStuffWorks.com: “Just as definitions of happiness change, so too does our ability to handle adversity. Numerous tales exist of people undergoing tremendous hardships -- cancer, losing a job, a bad breakup—and finding themselves in the end as happy as or happier than ever. Despite the difficulty in pinning down what happiness is and how to achieve it, we're going to take a stab at it in this article, in which we offer 10 key tips.”
“Abbey Lincoln, Bold and Introspective Jazz Singer”
Nate Chinen via Ann: “Long recognized as one of jazz’s most arresting and uncompromising singers, Ms. Lincoln gained similar stature as a songwriter only over the last two decades. Her songs, rich in metaphor and philosophical reflection, provide the substance of ‘Abbey Sings Abbey,’ an album released on Verve in 2007. As a body of work, the songs formed the basis of a three-concert retrospective presented by Jazz at Lincoln Center in 2002.”
“Teza [trailer]”
Liberator Magazine: “A powerful, moving story by Haile Gerima. Saw this in New York and it’s DOPE. ‘Set in Ethiopia and Germany, Teza examines the displacement of African intellectuals, both at home and abroad, through the story of a young, idealistic Ethiopian doctor…’”
“Oldest signs of tool-making found”
Jason Palmer: “That pushes back the earliest known tool use and meat-eating in such hominins by more than 800,000 years. …But Lucy and her contemporaries were thought to be vegetarians, and many had assumed that tool use arose only in later, Homo species.” This yet again will sound very alien and strange but here we go: Stone Age African Thought has yet to be transcended. “We” have spent most of our “civilized” time thinking about high-tech battlefield medicine than deep human healing.
“Dark matter hunt eyes deeper home”
Paul Rincon: “The matter we can see makes up just 17% of matter in the Universe; the remaining 83% is ;dark’, meaning it does not reflect or emit detectable light.” Here some poetry yet to be released (by me): ‘In the Blackness of the Atoms is the Witness… When you dare to defy what becomes of this?’