Musings

 

 

"Do nothing secretly; for Time sees and hears all things, and discloses all." - Sophocles.

 

 

(this is for the powers that be)

 

 OneLove

 

::::MME::::

Confronting The Darkness

(This one is for the ridiculously ignorant & self-serving people - especially the listless & comfortable ones - that I know. Our material goods will not save us or guarantee our freedom & happiness. We're in this bullshit system together so take your heads out of your asses & get to work.....you're making me upset!)


OneLove


:::MME:::

On The Rise: Lianne La Havas

Whoa! What a voice! This young & multi-talented chanteuse is making waves with her laid-back, sweet soulfulness and bridled power which are instantly felt - The world awaits her full CD which promises to be a classic from what I've been reading. Being from the islands, I had to find out if this London-based artist had Caribbean roots like so many other artists in the UK, and lo & behold, she does! According to The Guardian, Lianne La Havas was born and raised in South London to a Greek father and a Jamaican mother. Her mother exposed her early to the music of Eryka Badu, Jill Scott, India Arie & Nina Simone, but it was Lauryn Hill who had the biggest impact..& it is quite evident in her sound! Check her out in these videos.....




This is the original with Willy Mason......





Bangin' remix of Lost & Found...



(She did a better job than Rihanna on this cut)


Great interview! Her humble spirit is charmingly refreshing....

OneLove


:::MME:::

WTF? A Hidden Epidemic

A human brain overrun with cysts from Taenia solium, a tapeworm that normally inhabits the muscles of pigs.

You have to read this article from the June 2012 issue of Discover Magazine:

The Brain Hidden Epidemic: 
Tapeworms Living Inside People's Brains

If this info is not enough to make you give up eating under-cooked pork, then happy Taenia solium to you. 

 

OneLove

:::MME:::

 

 

Poet's Nook: "Talk To Strangers" by Saul Williams

Saul Williams never fails to pry open the doors of our perception...Deep piece.


OneLove


:::MME:::

Orwell Rolls In His Grave

It is appalling - tragically appalling - to have folks still running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Rather than seriously thinking about how their dominant institutions & structures of power are constituted & projected, some folks would much rather repeat some bullshit some "expert" uttered. With the public education system in shambles, it is not entirely surprising to bear witness to such a dreadful situation - garbage in/garbage out. This documentary does a good job in overturning the many illusions that countless still hold on to.....Personally, I have run out of patience with arguing with knuckleheads - a fool's errand, no doubt - so I am thankful that documentaries like this are out there for us to absorb & reflect upon.


OneLove


:::MME:::

An Interview with Derek Walcott

Great interview of St. Lucian Nobel poet, Derek Walcott, widely acknowledged as the greatest living English-language poet. I like the response he gave at the 11:47 mark to the question (to paraphrase), "How does St Lucia produce such high quality intellectuals?" Being educated in St Lucia and having attended the same high school Derek Walcott went to, I quickly identified with his observations. The academic life is of utmost importance Caribbean folk, right next to family and religion, especially in the smaller islands. Mr Walcott has much to teach us -  absorb!!!



OneLove


:::MME:::

MME's Jam Of The Day

This remix, taken from the album Motown Remixed. is smooth as hell! (Another stand-out track I like on this album is Salaam Remi's reggae remix of the Jackson 5's ABC). Also check out his live concert performance of What's Going On - fantastic opening lines on this one.

OneLove


:::MME:::

Musings

(our distant ancestor)

 

 

The uniformity of the earth's life, more astonishing than its diversity, 

is accountable by the high probability that we derived, 

originally, from a single cell, fertilized in a bolt of lightning as the earth cooled. 

 It is from the progeny of this parent cell that we take our looks; 

 we still share genes around, and 

the resemblance of the enzymes of grasses to those of whales is a family resemblance.

~ Lewis Thomas

from The Lives of a Cell

 

 

OneLove

 

::::MME::::

Nowhere To Hide

It's kinda creepy to think that there are people whose only job is to monitor your internet activities & dispatch that info to shady government authorities when requested to do so. When you combine this nonsense with Verizon's plan to buy a chunk of AWS (advanced wireless service) spectrum which would effectively control all aspects of how we get access to the Internet & what we can do online (not to mention how much it's going to cost!) AND President Obama's signing of the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) which tears to shreds the Bill of Rights, we have a very, very disturbing state of affairs. This is not the time to remain complacent & cocooned in our comforts & delusions - we are now the fodder for the (military/industrial) machine. 


OneLove


:::MME:::

That Pernicious Beast

It does appear that no matter how high African-Americans go in their chosen fields of endeavor, be it engineering, medicine, law, athletics or the President of the United States, that ragged old devil, racism, rears its ugly head to remind folks to "stay in their place". Sometimes you can't win for trying, but that should not prevent us from attacking that devil whenever/wherever it rears its nauseous head. After checking out this video, please take the time to sign the petition to stop UCLA's discriminatory practices.

OneLove

:::MME:::

Jim Crow Redux: NYPD's Stop and Frisk and Hassle

Astounding numbers from an analysis by the New York Civil Liberties Union of NYPD data from 2011 on an already infamous stop-and-frisk program that has been billed "the most massive local racial profiling program in the country." For starters: Police stopped and interrogated 685,724 people, a more than 600% increase since Mayor Bloomberg’s first year in office; nine out of 10 were neither arrested nor ticketed; almost 90% were black or Latino, with the number of young black men stopped exceeding the city's total population of young black men. And while more blacks and Latinos were frisked, they yielded fewer weapons than whites. The Center for Constitutional Rights is suing the city, and a silent march is planned June 17, Father's Day, to halt the program.
Update: A federal judge has granted class-action status to a lawsuit challenging the stop-and-frisk tactics, saying she was disturbed by the city’s “deeply troubling apathy towards New Yorkers’ most fundamental constitutional rights.”

“The NYPD’s own data undermine many of the Bloomberg administration’s justifications for the stop-and-frisk program,” NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said. “Contrary to the mayor and police commissioner’s assertions, the massive spike in the number of stops has done little to remove firearms from the streets. Instead, it has violated the constitutional rights of millions of people and corroded the ability of communities of color to trust and respect the police."

-  by Abby Zimet

See also The New Jim Crow

Stay alert...

OneLove

:::MME:::

Alternative to Chaos: A Critical Inquiry

   

Part 1 :- Current system & poverty

Part 2- Monetary scheme

Part 3 - Corruption, profit & scarcity

Part 4 - Imperialism & Venezuela

Part 5 - Petroleum, energy and collapse

Part 6 - Consumption & incentive

Part 7 - Work & education

Part 8 - Natural redesign

Part 9 - Venus Project & technology

Part 10 - Resource Based Economy

Part 11  - Alternative energies

Part 12 - Victims of culture

Part 13 - Symbiosis

  

Take a step beyond your comfort zone & consider these theoretical constructs.... This presentation is broken down into 13 subject areas worthy of actionable insights to expand upon.

OneLove

:::MME:::

97% Owned

When money drives almost all activity on the planet, it's essential that we understand it. Yet simple questions often get overlooked, questions like; where does money come from? Who creates it? Who decides how it gets used? And what does this mean for the millions of ordinary people who suffer when the monetary, and financial system, breaks down? 97% owned presents serious research and verifiable evidence on our economic and financial system from a UK-perspective and explains the inner workings of Central Banks and the Money creation process. Great info!!


Stay alert..


OneLove


:::MME:::

Rebirth Of A Nation

This snippet featuring an impressive roster of brilliant minds (including Bakari Kitwana, Vijay Prashad, Rosa Clemente, Mark Anthony Neal, Joan Morgan and Che “Rhymefest” Smith), is quite inspiring and robust, tackling topics ranging from the Obama Presidency to Hip Hop as a tool for social change. As soon as I get hold of the full video footage, I will post it. Our young ones really need to hear these types of discussions as way too much bullshit is floating around as truth......

For those of you who do not know the Birth Of A Nation reference, check it out here. This fear-mongering, race-baiting, aggressively vicious and defamatory film was a very effective form of spiritual assassination. In fact, it was intentionally made to do just that as it was founded on Thomas Dixon's novel, The Clansman, which was intended to  "work the audience up into a frenzy...and make them hate". In an interview Dixon himself stated that his whole purpose was to create discord & drive the African-American population out of the United States.

We need to be reminded of the ugly chapters of history as it has a funny way of repeating itself as we can see so clearly today.....

Stay alert.

OneLove

:::MME:::

Poet's Nook: "When" by D.H Lawrence

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego, 

when we escape like squirrels turning in the cages of our personality and get into the forests again, 

we shall shiver with cold and fright but things will happen to us so that we do not know ourselves. 

.

Cool, undying life will rush in, 

passion will make our bodies taut with power, 

we shall stamp our feet with new power and old things will fall down, 

we shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like burnt paper

 

 

OneLove

 

 

::::MME::::

St Lucia Jazzfest 2012

R&B singer Toni Braxton and her sister perform on the final day of the 21st Annual St. Lucia Jazz festival at Pigeon Island National Landmark (Wow!)

            St Lucia Jazzfest 2012 - Bill Mortley Photography
                        (log into Facebook to launch link)

 This year's line-up included Diana Ross, Toni Braxton. Joshua Redman, Gypsy Kings, Ziggy Marley, Hugh Masekela, Kirk Franklin and a number of Saint Lucia's leading musicians to include Luther Francois & Ronald 'Boo' Hinkson. This wildly successful festival is really a musical smorgasbord of various genres - from soca to R&B. You're bound to have one hell of a time at this annual event. The fact that St Lucia is arguably one of the most beautiful islands in the world only makes the experience that much more unforgettable. See you there next year!!

OneLove


:::MME:::

Poet's Nook: "Journeying God" (Prayer song from Ghana, traditional, translator unknown)

Journeying god,
pitch your tent with mine
so that I may not become deterred
by hardship, strangeness, doubt.
Show me the movement I must make
toward a wealth not dependent on possessions,
toward a wisdom not based on books,
toward a strength not bolstered by might,
toward a god not confined to heaven.
Help me to find myself as I walk in other's shoes.

OneLove

:::MME:::

Musings

 

 

 

 

The next Buddha will not take the form of an individual. 

The next Buddha will take the form of a community;
a community practicing understanding and loving kindness,
a community practicing mindful living. 

This may be the most important thing we can do
for the survival of the Earth. 

—Thich Nhat Hanh

 

 

OneLove

::::MME::::

Tyranny: A Fable

 
"A man living alone answers a knock at the door. There stands Tyranny, armed and powerful, who asks, "Will you submit?" The man does not reply. He steps aside. Tyranny enters and takes over. The man serves him for years. Then Tyranny mysteriously becomes sick from food poisoning. He dies. The man opens the door, gets rid of the body, comes back to the house, closes the door behind him, and says, firmly, "No!"~~Bertolt Brecht 

OneLove

:::MME:::

Money To Burn

“It doesn’t have to be pretty to be true...but if it’s true it’s beautiful. Truth is beautiful. And so my whole work is about what amounts to a reverence for life itself.”

- Dread Scott

Money to Burn is a performance that was enacted on Wall Street. Starting with $250, contemporary artist, Dread Scott,  burned money—singles, fives, tens and twenties, one bill at a time, while encouraging traders and others on The Street to join him with their own money. Referencing street “peddlers” of bygone days, he repeatedly sang the words “money to burn.”

Money to Burn explored a taboo. But at the same time this performance only made physical what happens on stock markets around the globe every day. In a transgressive act of burning his own money, some of which was generously provided by a grant from the Franklin Furnace Fund, his performance alluded to the absurdity of a system based on profit. It’s crazy to burn money on the street, but it is the height of rationality to have a market where billions of dollars can vanish in an instant and where even houses and food can evaporate! Unlike the “irrational exuberance” behind closed doors of trading firms/established institutions, Money to Burn took place in public for all to see. It was the ultimate act of destruction of value—this money was not exchanged for anything.

This unsettling immolation highlighted the polarization of wealth and income that exists in the world. The audience of brokers and tourists alike had the option of joining the act. As the video shows, some recoiled at something that goes against principles that we have learned from our earliest age; others chose to add to the pyre. Police intervened after 25 minutes and stopped the performance 15 minutes later. (SOURCE)

Seek....


OneLove


::MME:::

Den of Thieves: An Interview with Chris Hedges

(Also check here & here )




Stay alert...



OneLove


:::MME:::

Musings

 

"Your problem is how you are going to spend this one and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are."
 - Anne Lamott

OneLove

:::MME:::

Poet's Nook: "Humbled" by Sonia Sanchez & Ursula Rucker

ursula                                                                                                                                       sonia

(ursula)White cloud rivers ran through me

I felt them pass through my bones

Through liver and lung

And stomach

Washed me into the big white cloud lake

And I floated

No knowledge of swimming

But I floated

Right between fear and mountains

Just beneath blues and birds

Right next to the sun

And God

Even in the middle of wind

Even in the middle of wind

Humbled

(sonia)I am reciting the rain caught in my spleen

These lips can not swim

Only my breast wild as black waves

I met the collector of rain once who went to sleep in my sleeve

Is his alibi still under my arm?

I keep coughing up butterflies

My entrails trail albinos' tunes

his voice cums in my hair

Is the flesh tender where the knees weep?

Is the flesh tender where the knees weep?

Is the flesh tender where the knees weeeep?

Beneath blues and birds

Caught in my scream

Right between fear and mountains

Only my breast wild as black waves

Washed me into the big white cloud lake

I keep coughing up butterflies

Right next to the sun

I met a collector of rain once

humbled

humbled

humbled

humbled

humbled

humbled 


OneLove

::::MME::::

Chatting with Chomsky

Linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, prolific author and political activist Noam Chomsky is the real deal! It's no surprise that he is not featured in the mainstream press - he can totally fuck up an illusion. In this interview, Laura Flanders poses many interesting questions, from the Occupy movement to the real legacy of Dr Martin Luther King, but it is towards the end (from the 17:51 mark) that Chomsky unleashes a grim analysis that everyone seems to shy away from: the downward spiral of African-American wealth & the re-criminalization of black/brown life. Quite disturbing.


Stay awake..


OneLove


:::MME:::

Debt As Weapon Of Choice

When I first learned of how powerful Western nations & their partners in crime, the international financial institutions , use debt as a powerful leverage to bring nations to their knees, I was astounded by the level of sophistication and guile they employed to keep most of us in the dark. The common argument I used to hear (& still hear, believe it or not) was/is poor countries exist because they are  rife with corruption, ineptitude & their plight is mostly self-inflicted. International finance and control is thus necessary to bring these wayward nations/people back into the fold of civilization & the magic of the free market....aah...yeah...

The history of Africa, Latin America & the Caribbean all share in this well-orchestrated dance of death & servitude to the  global financial oligarchy. Ignorance coupled with a sense of comfort & entitlement have kept many in Western nations oblivious to the baskets that feed them (Africa, for example, has vast mineral resources which fuels growth and development in many developed and emerging economies of the world, yet remains poor, under-developed and dependent on IMF/World Bank/donor assistance for national budget support). This is no accident or blind Fate. Now folks are waking up as the chickens have come home to roost. Western countries are in deep shit as debt has raised its ugly head in the heart of Western nations & it is taking no prisoners (well, except for plutocrats who always seem to glide over the chaos & dictate what needs to be done which normally benefits them the most)....

Stay tuned...

OneLove

:::MME::: 

Poet's Nook: "Empty Suits and the Darkness that Moves Them" by Les Visible

Check out Les Visible's Stranger in a Strange Land which is equally powerful:

OneLove


:::MME:::

An Interview With Gerald Celente

This dude does not hold back. Check out other interviews here.


Keep your head on...


OneLove


:::MME:::

Suppressed Inventions

(Science & money don't mix well....much like politics & money, arts & money, love & money...Wow! The influence of money over any given sphere of human endeavor has a terrible record if you really think about it....How did we allow it to have such a destructive power over our society?)

OneLove

:::MME:::