[photographs of a dog and a Therapy Dogs International card]

Mozart
2006-2018

11/19/18

Hi Leon!

You may remember Mozi - my B. F. Nan's doggie. This is his memorial card to let his many fans know of his passing. He was a therapy dog so visited many shelters. I'll miss him a lot. :/ Take care.

PEOPLE SAY ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG!!!

NIPSY RIP

NIPSY HUSSEL

MY VISION

I saw him walking in "the promised land" with MLK, Jr, Malcolm X, Huey P. Newton and the band of angels.

ONE LOVE!

"I hope someone gets my message..." in the universe!!!

Ringo's Peace Party
"78"

At high noon

Love & peace

#Imagine/Lennono

Pity the Fools!!!

Feds expose college admissions cheating schemes (w/ pics) of actors Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman. www.theweek.com/News March 22, 2019 p 5

My take:

The mass media (esp. TV news and so-called legal experts!!!) repetitiously castigate defendant Lori Loughlin, because she doesn't appear to "act guilty" in public appearances!!!!!

She pled not guilty... is entitled to due process... presumed innocent!!!

Her mad! Rabid critics play "the Red Queen" in off with her lovely head, and then try her later!!!

Damn fools!!!

Why?!! The hot hell would Loughlin unlike Felicity Huffman - pleaded NOT!!! Guilty, and then pretend to be guilty!

Prayer!!!

Let's pray prospective jurors see her as not being "guilty", a'la Errol Flynn! Alec Baldwin! O.J. and Robert Blake, etc.

#mother'slove

#wearefamily

#trumpedorevenge

Dated: 4-11-19

Feds expose college admissions cheating scheme

Source: www.theweek.com/news March 22, 2019, p. 5

My Take

Actors Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman, et al, are not evil, nor mafia, nor bank robbers!!!

These are good and wise people!

And rich enough to buy into the "American dream"!!!

Pity the fools

Forget their faux outraged hypocritical critics!!!

Dream on!

God bless!

Dated 4-11-2019

Bob Dylan

What He Said

The answer - my friend
Is blowing in the wind...

and

You don't need a weatherman
To know which way the wind
Is blowing...

#therevolutionwillnotbetelevised

#gilscottheron

"Prediction is very difficult especially if it's about the future."

- Physicist Niels Bohr quoted in the press (New Zealand)

An American Dream Too Far

After our first American black president, Americans is apparently a long way from, as is said, experimenting with yet another "first". First woman, first Cuban president.

It's back to the "sameness" offered in Vice President Joe Biden or Sen. (R. KY.) Ron Paul.

Hillary and her elitist supporters are caught-up in not "a fairy tale" but an American dream too far.

By: Achy Obehas "Seeing Reds" in thesetimes.com December 2013, p. 16

By: Leon Irby dated 2014

President 2016

No! No!

Updated: 3-18-2016

Barack H Obama
Mark Rubio
Ted Cruz [5-3-2016]

All foreigners and all hell no!

That's What People Say:

"The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so."

Gore Vidal, quoted in the Los Angeles Times

The best bet Beto
2020
Vanityfair.com

Beto's Choice
by Joe Hagan, April 2019
cover story

My Take:

Beto (Robert) O'Rourke, 46, (aka Tony Robbins), is obviously the man of the hour!

[It's self-defeating to play the "race card" [i.e. white men] "He is a white man"]

White men have wives! Mothers! Sisters! And daughters! Too - as Hillary 2016 illuminatingly discovered in her loss.

The Democrats must accept that President Trumpedo has changed presidents' "personality"!!! See, e.g., "Trump derangement syndrome: Liberals hate his style, not his politics" Article by Ted Rall
rrall.com, twitter @tedrall

The Time of the Season!

The times specially demand a white male [a'la LBJ] (Robert Cara's work on Lyndon B. Johnson is on his home bookshelf, p. 66)

Like Southern Jimmy Carter [1977-1981] helped quiet down Gov. [D. Ala.] George C. Wallace's white supremacy presidential campaign 1960's - early 1970's...

OUTSIDER!?

Beto can beat Trumpedo [2020 !!!!] He knows the voters demand an apparent "outsider"!!!

The in crowd!

Beto ostensibly is not in with the New York and Hollywood in crowd!

The dynamo, insanely nationally ignored, in Wisconsin state politics is Sen. (D. Wis.) Tammy Baldwin!?

Her Record

In 2012, she decisively beat Wisconsin powerhouse former uber popular Gov. (R. Wis) Tommy Thompson, aka just call me "Tommy" to win the U.S. senate seat!

She is a winner! Again!

In 2018, last Nov. 07, she resoundingly beat then Wisconsin Gov. (R. Wis.) Scott Walker's super-powerful political machine to be re-elected by 10-points against her white female opponent, see Here + Now, wpt.org 11-09-2018, Fri 7:00 p.m. CDT.

By the way, she is proudly gay and progressive!

A winning combination!

She, as O'Rourke's VP puts Wisconsin back into play (blue) (and potentially the Midwest) Madison and Chi-Town white and black gay mayors respectively!!!

Gay Elected Officials

It's reported there are 300 gay mayors in USA. See wkok.com Capitol City Sunday, 04-07-2019, 9:A.M.

Sen. [I. Vt] Bernie Sanders
2020

UPDATE

Sen (I. VT.) Bernie Sanders' time was 2016!

HE BLEW IT!!!!!!!!

His super winning issue was similar to Pres. Trumpedo: They were perceived by voters as an "outsider" [and not HILLARY!!!]

2020!

Now Steve Bannon [Trumpedo's war team!], as he told to CBS News.com/60 Minutes, has the senator's true number. He didn't fight for the nomination!!!

2020 Prospect Opponent

Trumpedo fights dirty (NYC) style, and to win!!!

Therefore, Trumpedo can beat Sen. [I. VT.] Sanders in 2020?

Dated: 04-10-2019

VP Joe Biden
2020

"No Joe Biden's disastrous legislative legacy"
By Andrew Cockburn
Harper's Magazine March 2019, cover story, p. 25

UPDATE

V.P. Joe Biden time to win it was ostensibly 2016!

The time for ole Joe to run and win it is past.

Trumpedo in mocking the VP on Twitter shows he knows how to beat him in 2020!

Bad Rap Touchy! Feelie!

He has too bogge, as hinted in Andrew Cockburn's above expose! No Joe!!!

Date 4-10-2019

Feelie Good Men!!!

Hello:
Sammy Davis, Jr.
VP Joe Biden
aka "Can I call you Joe?"

Some good folks - people who loves people; without regard to gender - love to touch, embrace, kiss, make connection, etc. with folks!!!

It takes two to assert personal boundaries!

#metoo Those ladies, whom now make allegations about VP Joe Biden, making them feel uncomfortable in past encounter - owed it to themselves and him a social moral duty to have asserted their personal boundaries at the instant time of the incidents!

Men can't read minds and or mixed signals!!!

What will tomorrow bring!

Perhaps, about five years in the future the righteous #metoo movement shall come to realize that waiting until a man is up for a priceless prize [e.g. President! Oscar! Walmart etc.] is one of its fatal self-inflicted errors!!!

See: Sammy Davis, Jr: I've Gotta Be Me Feb. 19, 2019, at 9:p.m. CDT PBS.org

Dated: 04-10-2019

The Fake Lottery!!!

I bet the most overused tweet on social media is: Sorry! Apologize!! Sorry I am sorry!!!

#banwordsorry!!!

Oliver Stone, writer and director and co-author (2012) has written a true version of universal history, devastating the victors' version of lies, "The Untold History of the United States".

Commendation

Universal friends:

Have you read this illuminating classic "The Untold History of the United States"...!!!

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR!!!

Remembering an Icon

Ms Nancy Wilson, a beautiful black lady
A pioneer...

2019 [No! RIP! Rock in paradise!!!]...

When Hollywood wouldn't portray black ladies, except only as fat! Dark! Sapphire/apeish!, the beautiful, caramel, comely, delicious versatile singer Ms. Nancy Wilson busted through those degrading images racial barriers!!!

Reminiscing: Looking back to early 60s to 2019

I can't remember the exact ad poster [maybe beer?] but will never forget: I can vividly see full body [facial!!!] photos of Ms. Wilson! Glamorous! Sexy [Jean Harlow, move over!!!] and powerful!!!

All over Chicago buses; billboards letting the world know beautiful black ladies do exist!!!!!

My Prayer:

To a teenager you were an angel - and to the/this man, you shall always be an ANGEL!

Amen!

#lenahorne

#darkie!!!

Dated: 04-10-2019

Wendy Williams Show.com

"Wendy Bag"!!!

Update:

I now more clearly see some of why she so mercilessly, viciously, irrationally, persecuted Dr. William Bill Cosby PhD, during his high-tech lynching ordeal!!!

"Crack head"!!!

This poor woman is a "crack head"!!!

E.g. "Windy in Crisis" www.usmagazine.com/hearthhiatus Feb. 11, 2019, P.P. 48-51

Dated: 04-10-19
2:34 A.M. CDT

Cut-down that innocent black man from that high-tech lynch tree!!

UPDATE:

Brought down Bill Cosby
Andrea Constand
NBC.com/Dateline
Fri. June 1, 2018 9:p.m. CDT

No! No!

She hanged Dr. Bill Cosby, PhD - high!!!

#freedom
#emmittill
#strangefruit

Dated 04-10-2019
12:04 AM CDT

[page 30 is upside down, concerns Bill Cosby]

MLK, Jr.
Malcolm X
Huey P. New
Bobby Clark
Fred Hampton
George Jackson
Nat Parker
John Brown
Mark Clark
Ad nauseam

Nate Parker

Black superhero! Actor! Director! Producer, etc.

UPDATE: CBS News.com/60 Minutes 10-2-2016

Birth of a Nation

Nat Turner life story

Spotlight paid $17,500,000.00 for distribution rights at Sundance Movie Fest

A new record

PC lynch mob ran Mr. Parker out of town

White negroes like Sunny (aka Shady) Hostin, co-host, ABC.com/The View ran Mr. Parker out of Hollywood...

See also: "Tell It Like It Is" by Nathan Turner

Vogue.com September 2016, p.p. 721-723, 795

Due Process

ABCnews.com/The View on Wed., 03-22-2019, Sunny (aka Shady!!!) exclaimed forcefully actor Jussie Smollet is entitled to due process in his false reporting to Chi-Town!

See "Our Kind of People" author of bk. Lawrence Otis Ghram

HOWEVER NOT SO!!!

Michael Jackson (RIP)
R. Kelly
Nat Parker
Dr. Bill Cosby, PhD

#JUSTICEFORALL

Ad nauseam!!!

Dated: 04-10-2019

What's Wrong With This Picture!?

Whoopi!
Oprah!
Bev Smith!
Shirly (Shryl) Underwood
CBS.com/The Talk
Lonnie Love?, etc

If they got their jobs based on merit and talent I'll eat apeshit!

"Who Is That Lady"?!!

"#metoo movement"

That's what she said about a young man:

"So I guess it's clear that he shoots diamonds out of his penis?"

On how Pete Davidson previously scored Ariana Grande and now Kate Beckinsale

BETHENNY FRANKEL

Source: www.usmagazine/Loose Talk February 25, 2019 p. 12

"#metoomovement" - but not us women!!!!!

Dated: 04-03-2019

Western State

by K. Austin Collins

An exclusive look at the new film Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood - starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and Margot Robbie - which revisits Hollywood in vintage Quentin Tarantino fashion.

vanityfair.com Hollywood 2019, p. 136

A Lover's Question
No. One?

Did Oprah and her crew of stereotypes kill off the Hollywood gorgeous sexy blond types [a'la Jean Harlow! Mm! etc.] ?!!

So, now is only Margot Robbie the last lady standing!!!

p. 43, p. 139 (pics)...

A Lover's Question
No. Two?

What manner man is this: who is man enough to watch his wife go off to work with both actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt on same movie project!!!

Dated: 04-01-2019

Mischa Anne Marsden Barton

UPDATE:

Mischa
Actor

Thank God! Is well! Alive
Lively
And working!

See: The Hills: New Beginnings [premiering April 15 on MTV]

Cosmopolitan April 2019 cover story

#prayersanswered

Dated: 03-25-2019

With Regards from Don Michael Corleone!!!

Monica Lewinsky
My Side of the Story
usweekly.com
12-10-2018, p. 45

Revenge served cold is sweetest! "Metoo" Dona Lewinsky masterfully played Mr. Bill Clinton to get her justice delayed!

And by apologizing to Madam Hillary, put her cold non-response back into the "bad" limelight!!!

Well done! Dona Lewinsky!!!!!

Bon appetit!!!

12 NEWS Best columns: The U.S.

Investigating leaks began with Obama
Margaret Sullivan
The Washington Post

The Justice Department's seizure of a reporter's phone and email records is an overt threat to every journalist covering the Trump administration, said Margaret Sullivan. Last week, investigators seized years' worth of phone and email records from Ali Watkins of The New York Times and arrested her alleged source, a former staff member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. "No one should be surprised" at this intrusion into press freedom, because Trump's Justice Department had a "clear blueprint to follow - courtesy of Barack Obama." Obama's Justice Department used the Espionage Act, "an arcane century-old law," to pursue leakers on nine different occasions. Investigators subpoenaed telephone records from Associated Press journalists, and named Fox News reporter James Rosen a "co-conspirator" in a leak about North Korea's nuclear program. Worst of all, they traced calls and emails from Times reporter James Risen, who nearly went to prison for refusing to give up a source at the CIA. Late in his second term, Obama backed off the "unsavory" pursuit of reporters' confidential sources. But he set "a dangerous precedent". President Trump has openly talked of locking up reporters - and leak investigations may be how he does it.

Bill Clinton's #MeToo reckoning
Jim Geraghty
NationalReview.com

[USE]

Bill Clinton's sexual misconduct finally appears to be catching up with him, said Jim Geraghty, but the damage to America's political culture is already done. The former president was widely condemned for a recent interview in which he portrayed himself as the victim of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, despite the change in attitudes toward such behavior in the #MeToo era. If Clinton won't accept full responsibility for his actions in the '90s, Democrats should: Blinded by partisanship, feminists and liberals decided the Lewinsky scandal was about consensual sex between consenting adults, and let Clinton trick them "into defending the indefensible." As we now recognize, sex between a 22-year-old unpaid intern and the president of the U.S. is an abuse of power. Democrats would have lost virtually nothing by pushing Clinton to resign in 1998. Al Gore would have become president and a heavy favorite for re-election, likely presiding over an identical agenda. But the Left defended Clinton to the hilt, proving that "you could get caught red-handed and survive if enough people deemed you politically irreplaceable." That's a lesson President Trump's defenders learned well: "When your guy is caught with his pants down or hand in the cookie jar, don't hold him accountable, but turn the tables and attack, attack, attack."

For women, life is a beauty pageant
Bari Weiss
NYTimes.com

[USE]

Miss America may have given up its swimsuit competition, said Bari Weiss, but American women are still "living inside a beauty pageant." The only reason the pageant - or rather, the "competition", as it's now called - did away with young women strutting the stage in bikinis "is that it's simply too explicit for our euphemistic era." Today, enlightened men pretend not to judge women on their appearance, and women tell each other we don't care how we look. But our culture still relentlessly objectifies women. Women seek to be "super fit" with hours of Pilates, yoga, and Soul Cycle, avoid carbs, and live on salads and smoothies. To impress men and other women, "we wear stilts to hike around concrete jungles and lie about how they are anything other than medieval torture devices." We get body hair waxed off, and spend hundreds on beauty routines and makeup and hair. Say this about Miss America's now-defunct swimsuit competition, with young women parading around "in stilettos and tiny squares of nylon held up by string": At least it was honest. The contestants were being "watched and scrutinized and judged", just as women are in the real world every day.

Viewpoint

"Our planet does not need our saving. The biosphere has endured cataclysms far worse than us - and after millions of years thrived again. Even the Earth's five fearsome mass extinctions became opportunities for the biosphere's creativity, driving new rounds of evolutionary experiments. As the great biologist Lynn Margulis once put it, 'Gaia is a tough bitch'. What Earth's history does make clear, however, is that if we don't take the right kind of action soon, the biosphere will simply move on without us, creating new versions of itself in the changing climate we're generating now."

Adam Frank in NYTimes.com

It must be true... I read it in the tabloids

* A Virginia woman managed not to lose control of her car after a 2 1/2-foot-long snake slithered out of the air vent as she was driving - and then disappeared under a seat. Trying to stay calm, Lora Goff pulled over and called 911. When the animal control officer arrived, he confessed he was also scared of snakes. "I said, 'I'm in trouble now'", Goff recalled. The officer failed to catch the snake, so Goff put sticky traps under her seat and drove home. Her husband found the serpent stuck to a trap the next morning, but Goff doesn't care to know how he disposed of it. "I don't want to see that thing anymore."

* A 26-foot-tall statue of Marilyn Monroe is causing outrage in Stamford, Conn., because the starlet's rump points directly at a nearby church. Put up by the city as part of a summer art display, the statue depicts a famous scene from The Seven Year Itch in which Monroe's white dress is lifted by a blast of air from a subway grate. "It's disrespectful", said Pam Riley, a worshipper at the First Congregational Church. "Everyone's under there looking up her skirt."

* Firefighters in England had to rescue a man who became stuck up a tree while trying to catch his escaped pet parrot. When the green parrot fled its cage and flew into a nearby tree, its owner scrambled up the branches. He soon discovered that he couldn't reach the parrot - or climb down the tree. Firefighter Michael Novell said it took his crew 35 minutes to rescue the man, "but unfortunately the parrot made a bid for freedom and succeeded."

THE WEEK June 22, 2018

DATED: 03-25-2019

JUSTICE FOR ALL!!!

UPDATED:

Adrian Peterson gets 2-years deal from Redskins (sic)!!!

#gma ABCNews.com newsticker
03-15-19 Thurs. 7: A.M. CDT

#prayersanswered

DATED: 03-25-2019

"That What People Say"

ABCNews.com/The View
Wed. 03-13-2019 10: A.M. CDT

Universal friends:

Did you view the three old ladies + Joy! Hostin (aka "Shady"!) and guest co-host Ann Navaron on The View to Wednesday?

Hot! Nasty -n- rustic!!

They were boldly in rabid, fervid white heat to share the Bachelor Colton Underwood, 26, [aka VIRGIN] whether or not he lost his notorious controversial "virginity" on last night [i.e. Tues/Tuesday 03-12-2019] 7:00 P.M. CDT. ABC.com The Bachelor...

I kinkily wanna know which door?

He [and beloved Ms. Cassie Randolp - ] kept it, as should be, "PRIVATE"!!! $ No one knows what goes on behind closed doors. $] !!!

"#metoomovement"

Thank God! It was not Colton - the man - doing this sicko BS!!!!! About a lady!!

See also: www.usmagazine.com/lonelyheartsclub 2-25-2019, p. 54

DATED: 03-13-2019

A viewer's review and commending of Fox new medical drama series

"The Resident"

Each illuminating episode was Hollywood "classroom" educational old school (50's - early 70s) on how real life is!!!

HOT TOPICS

Here it's all hot topics: "health care", immigration, money - profits over life, etc, in Trumpedo area!

The talented co-star Matt Czuch's own appropro review captures the mood: "We pull back the curtain on what it means to run a hospital and about medical error."

USmagazine.com/US Must/Television Feb. 5, 2018, p. 66

It's like cameras on real life happenings:

When the doctors and insurance associations and big drug companies see "The Residents", they're scheme to have it promptly cancelled!

Friends, let's be entertained, educated and save this classic.

Dated: 02-24-2019

Our list of criminal justice campaigns that can win in 2019

by Aleks Kajstura, December 12, 2018

The 2019 legislative session is almost upon us, and we've compiled - as we do every year - a list of under-discussed but winnable criminal justice reforms. While federal prison reform continues to receive more than its fair share of attention, state legislatures and governors remain empowered to determine the future of mass incarceration.

We publish this list as a briefing with links to more information and model bills, and recently sent it to reform-minded state legislators across the country. (To read about recent legislative victories on these fronts - such as three states ending unnecessary driver's license suspensions in 2018! - see our new Annual Report.)

Our list of reforms ripe for legislative victory are:

* Ending prison gerrymandering
* Lowering the cost of calls home from prison or jail
* Protecting in-person family visits from the video calling industry
* Stopping automatic driver's license suspensions for drug offenses unrelated to driving
* Repealing or reforming ineffective and harmful sentencing enhancement zones
* Protecting letters from home in local jails
* Requiring racial impact statements for criminal justice bills
* Creating a "safety valve" for mandatory minimum sentences
* Eliminating "pay only" probation and regulating privatized probation services
* Reducing pretrial detention
* Decreasing state incarceration rates by reducing jail populations
* Curbing the exploitation of people released from custody
* Ending electronic monitoring for individuals on parole
* Shortening excessive prison sentences

Could your state be working on any of these reforms? We're looking forward to the progress we can make together in 2019!

Aleks Kajstura is Legal Director at the Prison Policy Initiative.

HAIL!!! "The revolution will not be televised"!!!

- Gil Scott Heron

"It's time for me to kill that old bxxch"

On saying goodbye to his character Madea in 2019 - Tyler Perry

That's what people say!!

Die N-word!
Die N-word!
Die N-word!
[repeat ad infinitum!!!]

Sooo! Black men can live!!!!!!
#usmagazine.com/Loose Talk November 19, 2018 p. 10
#spikelee

Dated: 12-01-2018

JOANS NEWSLETTER
SOULFOOD
November, 2010

OVERCOMING PREJUDICE

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made
Of people whose skin is a different shade
You've got to be carefully taught

You've got to be caught before it's too late
Before you are six or seven or eight
To hate all the people your relatives hate
You've got to be carefully taught.

These words are by Oscar Hammerstein in the musical "South Pacific". We should not think that prejudice against a different race is the only prejudice. Think of how we look at people sleeping on a park bench, an unemployed immigrant curled up under a stairwell, a prostitute hiding behind a sidewalk scaffold, or even those who go to visit their loved ones in prison.

There are other prejudices that we know by other features than skin color. There are those who are handicapped physically, foreigners whose language is different, and elderly who are senile and talk to themselves or make repetitive noises that don't make sense. In the facility where my husband is, I have come to love those whose minds and speech are affected by age and illness. I love their smile and how their eyes light up when talked to, one even saying, "Can I come home with you?" In a powerful book entitled "The Blood of Lambs", a Muslim and an Islamic terrorist by the age of seven, tells of being trained to kill those opposed to his Muslim beliefs. He wanted to see Israel and America destroyed. He said he loved Allah with all his heart. He came to America to promote his beliefs and to win people for Allah. He went into the neighborhoods of the poor and won them over by bringing them food.

An almost fatal accident severely injured Kamal, the Muslim. Dr. David arrives on the scene in the midst of his recovery and invites Kamal to recuperate in his home. After the offer, the Dr. said that there was no catch - he just wanted to show Kamal the love of God. Kamal was sure he was being seduced and defiled by these people. But throughout his recuperation with Dr. David's family, he slowly was changed by their hospitality, the children, the food and the prayers for his recovery. He fought it, but in the end he spoke to crowds about his life-changing experience - living in the Dr.'s home and being cared for by a Christian family. Kamal continued in his Christian faith, speaking to crowds of his faith and overcoming the extreme prejudice that existed among the Muslims.

In another book on overcoming prejudice, "My First White Friend", by Patricia Raybon, I read Patricia Raybon's confession. She stated "I stopped hating white people on purpose." She knew it was wrong. She said the hate made her physically sick. "It was an obsession, an emotion, psychologically gnawing on her in a way that never let her rest; that always left her dazed half of the time and weary the other half. She said the race-focused consciousness was killing her because it confined her spirit, her vision and her sanity." She said, "I had to stop hating because I had to start living." Yes, she had reason to hate. White people had murdered Emmit Till, Mack Charles Parker, Medgar Evers, Herbert Lee, and the four little girls in the Birmingham church. To make matters worse, white people had acquitted the guilty. She hated because they had lynched and lied and jailed and poisoned and a whole lot of other horrendous crimes. Enough on her feelings of hate... How did her first white friend change her - enough to write a book that both black and white would read.

I'm getting to the meat of the book, "My First White Friend". She, Patricia Raybon, started her reversal of feelings by praying, not in private, but through the day, for help to love an employee that she hated, and of course, to love herself. She read of Mahatma Gandhi's teachings, who wrote that "those who can not find forgiveness in their hearts are trapped in their beliefs of the unforgiveableness of sin." How many times are we to forgive? Jesus tells us seventy times seven or over and over and over again. It's not a one time thing. Raybon says, "It's a God thing. And God as I understand Him will not withhold a second chance or more." Gandhi says, "The weak can never forgive, for forgiveness is an attribute of the strong." To forgive was to overcome the prejudice Patricia had for the whites and their racism and injustice.

Mississippi in the summer of 1961 seems to me the height of racism and prejudice. It seemed the same to about 700 college students who went to Mississippi to register black voters. They also set up Freedom Schools. On the night of the Freedom workers' arrival, they were confronted with the news of three volunteers who were killed by the Klu Klux Klan. The details are told in the book "Freedom Summer" by Bruce Watson - a must read. Watson confirms that Mississippi was a land out of time, seared by memories of the Civil War. As the volunteers fanned across the state, tensions mounted, beatings intensified, and churches were burned. The volunteers suffered many indignities. Three volunteers were ejected from a cafeteria. Students walked out of class in support.

A Freedom worker received a phone call telling her that everyone had to get out in three days. Freedom House would be bombed, the phone caller said. He said, "There ain't gonna be no Freedom School and no freedom there or any place else."

Muhammad Ali, formerly Cassius Clay, who recounts his life in his book "The Soul of a Butterfly" won an Olympic Gold Medal for boxing at the Olympics. He was very proud to bring his medal home to Louisville. He was a hero for a few days, but then he was refused service in a local cafe. "We don't serve Negroes", and he was told to leave. He thought his medal would mean something, like freedom and equality, and he thought that if the medal doesn't mean equality then it doesn't mean anything. He walked to the Ohio River, took the medal off, and threw it in the river.

May there be peace on earth,
May hearts of all people be open to themselves and each other.
May all people awaken to the divine light deep within.
May all creation be blessed and be a blessing to all that is.

By Larry Peacock